Insomnia
by tikitikirevenge
Summary: Sun-dappled glades, ash-coated worlds: a retelling of Majora's Mask.
1. CYCLE 0: Welcome to Termina

**INSOMNIA  
****based on **_**The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

characters and scenario by Nintendo  
dramatisation by tikitikirevenge

* * *

_Ever gone two weeks without sleep?_

_It's hell._

_There's a myth doing the rounds that faeries don't need to sleep. Don't be ridiculous. Everything needs to sleep. I've seen a lot of creepy crawlies in my time, fire-breathing lizards and ice monsters and worms big enough to build a town on, and I'm pretty sure all of those things got a little shut-eye at night. Um, okay, maybe not the undead things, Gibdos and Bubbles and all that. They're just piles of bone held together by some seriously nasty magic. I got to see a lot of those. Do you have any idea how many skeletons are walking around under your feet at any time? It's seriously creepy, especially – uh... lost my train of thought there..._

_Anyway, we're not talking about sleep. Not really. This is about the time the world almost ended. You do remember that, right? Festival of Time, moon falling into the middle of Clock Town, all sorts of madness happening everywhere you looked... not the sort of thing you forget easily. Not me, anyway. I was right in the middle of it. A friend of mine turned out to be behind the whole mess – kinda, not his fault, long story – and I spent the rest of the time running around with some sort of crazy time-travelling warrior-child psycho. No offence._

_So. Time travel. Not all it's cracked up to be. Try fifteen days without sleep, struggling to keep track of the exact time you have to be somewhere to stop something from happening and with a bunch of monsters having a go at your wings every other moment. Fun? Noooo. Awesome? A little bit. Meeting your future self is the most freaky thing that can happen to you, but meeting your past self is seriously trippy. Can you begin to imagine that? Can I possibly describe what that's like to you? Probably not, but here goes nothing._

_This one time, me and my brother got split up for a bit..._

**-**

**CYCLE 0: CLAUSTROPHOBIA**  
**DAWN of the FIRST DAY**

**-**

"Oh, _blast_," whispered Tatl, staring at the huge wooden door which had just shut on her. "Blastblastblastblastblast. Hell. Wingshreds."

She pounded at the door a couple of times, knowing it was useless. Whoever had invented doors had clearly hated faeries: even the most stupid Chuchu jelly monster could push one of those things open with enough time and luck, but noooo, not her kind. Stupid.

A whimper from somewhere behind her caught her attention, and wit a surprised little jolt she turned around. Who could it be-?

"Oh, it's just you," she said, her voice dropping in disappointment. It was the stupid little boy that she, Tael and Skull Kid had ambushed, still sitting on that big fat flower, staring at his reflection with what passed as shock. Ah, the look on his face... the boy had _so _had it coming when Skull Kid used his magic mask to turn him into a little wooden Deku scrub. Served him right for following them all the way down here.

He seemed to be having trouble with his new voice, because all the noises he was making sounded like little scared choked sobs. Then again, maybe he was crying. Not that she felt sorry for him. If she hadn't been dealing with him, she wouldn't have gotten separated from the others.

The Deku kid whimpered again, and she felt her fists clench.

"Shut up!" snapped Tatl, "I'm trying to think!" Stupid kid – no way was she asking for _his _help. She turned around to face the door again. "Oo-kay. Door. Gotta be another way around."

She flitted around the edges of the door, hoping for a crack big enough to squeeze through. When that failed, she zoomed up to the ceiling and started to search there, maybe for a natural air vent, or a running stream, or a teleport or magic coin or _anything _that could get her out of here.

She couldn't find anything. She was trapped in the belly of the Underforest with a Deku scrub who probably hated her guts. Definitely not worth talking to. Tatl felt her heart begin to race: eternity in the middle of nowhere was a very unpleasant idea.

"_Skull Kid!_" she screamed, whipping around to face the door. "Come back _right now_! I mean it! Why-" - she choked, coughed, started again - "why won't you come back?"

Why wasn't he coming back? After all their time together, she felt... cheated. Was something wrong with Skull Kid? He _had_ been acting weirdly the last few days. Maybe... of course! He was probably just in a nasty mood after the horse ran off. Skull Kid had always wanted his own horse. He didn't hate her after all. He was probably waiting for her on the outside.

"I'll be right there!" Tatl said to the door – and paused, remembering that she couldn't open it.

Heaving a sigh, she turned around to look at the little green-clad Deku scrub across the room. The same one she'd helped Skull Kid to ambush and curse. The one she had just poked and prodded at.

"You!" she said, swooping towards him and putting on the sweetest voice she could. "I think we got off to a bad start..."

**-oOo-**

Part of Link wanted to scream, trapped in this strange, unfamiliar body in this strange, desolate underground complex. Another part of him was revelling in the weirdness of it all, excited by every dewdrop he could suddenly taste in the air, every unfamiliar feeling he got as his bare feet pattered across the dirt ground. That little bit of him which was still a child was entranced by the newness of it all. Mostly, though, it was panic.

Link was no stranger to magical curses and frightening situations: at the age of ten he had seen unspeakable horrors, had his childhood stolen from him, started and ended a war... so it wasn't the idea of being cursed that was making his wooden chest constrict and the walls of the tunnel close in on him. It was the horror of losing his own identity – having to relearn something as simple as walking, everything he'd ever been taught suddenly becoming scarily obsolete. If he ever got out of this curse, the first thing he'd do-

"Hurry up!" interrupted a shrill voice. "We'll never catch up to my friends if you're that slow!"

The faerie who was leading him through this otherworldly labyrinth had turned around to face him, flying backwards through the twisting passage. For the briefest of moments Link recalled how his old friend Navi once crashed into a wall after doing that. He tried to smile, but his new face wouldn't let him.

They screeched to a halt as the passage opened up into a larger, cavernous area, a chasm directly in front of them. Like everything he'd seen after falling through the hole, this cavern also had an alien beauty to it, with stalactites and stalagmites sticking out of the walls at unusual angles, covered with grass and red-and-pink flowers of all sizes. Warped fragments of trees floated in the air, twisted and leafless. Torches shone from here and there, illuminating everything.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" said the faerie, settling on his tree-branch nose. "It goes on for ever and ever, you know."

_What is this place?_, Link wondered, trying to adjust his mental map. Maybe it was the concussion from falling so far, 'cause by his reckoning they'd been running in circles for the past five minutes, and yet they hadn't ended up in the same place twice.

As if she'd read his mind, the faerie said, "You're probably wondering where we are. This is the Underforest. It's... well, I'm not one hundred percent sure, but it's like a magical bridge between... everywhere. We used to go exploring through here. Every path leads somewhere completely different – any corner of the world, really. It'd hard to find your way in, but once you have, you just focus real hard on where you want to go, and keep walking, and eventually you just... get there. That is, if there's a path going there."

If he stopped to think about it, he would have realised she was spouting utter nonsense. Right now, though, he was fixated on the yawning chasm which cut off the path in front of him. How on earth were they going to cross that?

"You're probably not used to your Deku scrub body yet, are you?" asked the faerie. "Okay, here's a secret: if you stand on top of one of these Deku Flowers-" she zoomed over to a particularly big plant - "and let your weight sink in... go on, give it a try..."

Eyeing her warily Link walked over to the flower in question and hopped on. Nothing happened.

"No, no," said the faerie impatiently. "You have to sink into it. Try, um... try to imagine you're growing roots from your feet." He complied reluctantly. Still nothing. "Ugh, what's taking you so long? Really picture it, otherwise it won't work."

_How do you know so much about Deku scrubs_? Link wanted to ask.

Completely misreading his look, the faerie said, "Oh, you want to be introduced, don't you? I'm Tatl. The guy in the funny mask is Skull Kid. And you probably saw my brother, Tael? He's a faerie as well. The poor boy must be so worried... we'd better catch up to them fast!"

A voice in the back of Link's mind reminded him that the girl couldn't be trusted. Whoever she and her friends really were, they certainly hadn't had his welfare in mind when they'd attacked and robbed him just minutes ago. Not to mention how dangerous that Skull Kid character looked – anybody who could cast a curse of that power in a single breath wasn't to be trifled-

"Wah!" Link squeaked, as without warning the flower he was standing on opened up beneath him. He kicked his tiny legs, trying to find a foothold, but without luck – a split second later he'd crashed into the insider of the Deku Flower.

Jagged branches and stems grazed against his skin – if it wasn't wood he would have been bleeding like mad by now. The branches seemed to move of their own accord, squeezing around him and holding him tight, pinning him until he could barely move. He squirmed, trying to escape, but in his new body he was too weak no manage anything.

The last thing he saw before the petals of the flower slammed shut on him was the little yellow faerie hovering above him, laughing like mad.

"Oh, Gods! Did you see the look on your face? You soooo freaked out! Haha, I can't believe you didn't see that coming. You're going to be there for a while!"

The Hylian-turned-Deku-scrub kept on struggling. Was she a sadist or something? What kind of messed-up creature found anything funny in this suffocating death? Or perhaps she was just completely insane like the rest of her messed-up little friends; maybe she had just led him here to die like this, slowly, plenty of time to panic. Did Deku scrubs even die of starvation? Maybe he would be here forever, trapped inside this tiny wooden shell...

"Are you okay in there?" said Tatl's voice as an afterthought, muffled through the flora. "You sound like you need some help in there." Pause. "Do you?"

Link stopped in his thrashing. So she wasn't entirely insane. He squealed back as loudly as he could.

Tatl sighed dramatically. "It's not _that_ hard. You told the flower to take you in by imagining it hard enough, right? So just imagine it spitting you out again and we should be on our way!"

He closed his eyes and tried to envision it like she described. In his mind he tried to conjure the sensation he'd had as he'd fallen in, trying to remember exactly what he had been doing with his body...

This time the response was much quicker. The flower rumbled and the branches which, moments ago, had been clasping him tightly, whipped him outside and sent him flying into the air. He didn't think about it – he just screamed, as he went sailing up for about ten metres, felt himself go weightlessness as his ascent came to a wor-ry-ing halt...

"Ouch..." said Tatl.

Screaming all the way, Link plummeted back into the ground, crashed onto the flower, bounced off, and rolled off to the side, whimpering in pain.

"You okay there?" said the faerie.

Link just groaned.

"Hey, could be worse," said Tatl. "If you were still in your human body, you'd probably be dead by now, ha!"

Crawling to his feet, Link shot her a glare. Psychopath.

Tatl settled over on the bridge of his nose. "Well, we'd better try again, huh?"

It took him a couple of seconds to register that she was being serious, and even then he just stared at her blankly. How was doing that again going to help them get over the gap?

Tatl groaned. "Look, just do what I say, okay? I know what I'm talking about!" He still wasn't moving, so she added, "If you grab some petals on the way out, you can slow your fall. I've seen Scrubs do it before to cross rivers. Trust me, it's safe."

_Trust you?_, thought Link. As if he had any choice...

Four misfires and two expletives later, and Link was becoming confident enough gliding in mid-air to chance the first gap. He launched out of the Deku flower, clutching tightly onto a couple of long-stemmed flowers, and leaned his weight forward. The flowers spun in his hands like propellers, whirring so fast that the air pressure kept him afloat, and he held on to them for dear life as he began to inch across the chasm. Steering himself to a floating stalactite which had another Deku flower on top, he floated over with room to spare as the flowers in his hands tore themselves to shreds. He dropped onto the ground, even managing to land on his feet. Giddy with adrenaline, he pumped his little wooden fists with a triumphant squeal.

"Hey, nice work, Deku boy!" said Tatl, who had landed ahead of him. "Now let's see you do that a second time."

Grinning, she pointed across the chasm to a distant burning torch. Link's heart sank; hundreds of floating rocks hovered eerily between them and the exit. This was going to take some time.

**-oOo-**

Finally, after an eternity and two extremely close calls, Link dropped neatly onto the last ledge, right where a single torch slowly burned. If it wasn't for the torch, he could have sworn they were standing where they'd started. The twisted vista of floating rock and trees looked exactly the same from this side; even the door now in front of him was identical.

"Don't worry, we're nearly out of here," said Tatl, not for the first time. "Can't you feel that? There's a breeze blowing through. We must be _just _beneath the surface. Come on, open the stupid door!"

Link skittered over to the door and gave it a good shove. It creaked slightly, something moving inside the walls, and then the enchantment weaved into the wood kicked in, the weight of the door rising above the ground seemingly of its own accord.

"_Thank_ you," muttered Tatl, going through the door. She arched an eyebrow. "You coming or what?"

He followed her through, the door slamming shut the moment he had passed through it. His eyes took a moment to readjust.

They were somewhere entirely different.

Indoors, but a single shaft of sunlight pierced through from above. He stood on a grilled metal walkway, placed just centimetres above a running stream of water. Not much further on, the walkway turned into a stairway, which curved around the walls of the room, leading up and out of sight. The running water, now that he looked, was powering a gigantic waterwheel that creaked rustily as its tremendous weight spun around, water sloshing everywhere as it did. The waterwheel connected to a series of pistons which led straight up – again, out of view.

"Oh, _wingshreds_," said Tatl, staring up. From the tone of her voice, it didn't sound like good news.

Link scampered forward to where she was hovering and looked up – the staircase stretched up for about three storeys before the ceiling appeared. He couldn't see anything ominous, and it must have shown in his face, because Tatl sighed and snapped at him.

"No, not _that_, stupid. See that sunbeam? It's coming from the east."

East, thought Link. Which meant that the sun was in the east, which in turn meant-

"It's got to be, what, dawn right now?" muttered Tatl. "And it was the middle of the afternoon when we met. That's more than twelve hours. We must have lost so much time in the Underforest... grr... if you hadn't been so slow..."

Link ignored the accusation and started scaling the steps. His new body craved fresh air – something to do with being wooden? – and his already-dulled sense of danger had given in at the sight of a way out.

Tatl was still talking to herself. "So you didn't wait, huh, Skull Kid? You didn't wait. Ugh... next time I see you, I'm gonna give- woah, woah... hey, Deku boy! Where do you think you're going?"

He ignored her, scurrying up the steps, already more than halfway.

"I would _so_ not do that if I were you," said Tatl, dashing forward in front on him.

He kept pressing forwards, reaching the top of the stairs and looking straight ahead to where a pair of wooden doors swayed tantalisingly before him. Tatl hovered before him, trying to block his way – a comically futile effort when one realised how tiny she was compared to him even in his new shape.

"Come on, there's no rush," said Tatl. "You're going to blind yourself, we've been underground for hours..."

It occurred to Link that she was right a split second after he pushed open the double doors. He winced at the bright light and stared straight into the nearest shadow, waiting for a few painful seconds as his pupils adjusted.

"Told you," said Tatl, squinting hard as she followed him out.

As his eyes adjusted, his other senses were already kicking in. The first thing he noticed was the sound of dozens of voices trailing around him, chatting idly. In the distance, dogs and cats yapped and yowled at one another. The faint scents of freshly-baked pastries and fresh fruits wafted past him, a kaleidoscope of smells to his hollow wooden nose.

Eyes now refocused, he began to take in his surroundings. They were standing in the middle of a town square, surrounded by people going about their daily hustle-bustle. Directly in front of them, carpenters ran back and forth, laying the wooden supports for some sort of tower. Around them, children darted around the feet of their unsuspecting parents, poking and prodding at animals; a postman jogged past frantically; a half-dozen soldiers pushed their way through a narrow opening; a shady kid with a cap over his eyes stalked a well-dressed woman.

It had been months since Link had last been in a big town. He'd almost forgotten how good it felt to be lost in a crowd.

"So," said Tatl, once again trying to perch on his nose. "This your first time in Termina?"

Link nodded.

"Watch it!" said Tatl, losing her balance and fluttering a safe distance away. "Right, well... welcome to Termina. We're in the middle of Clock Town right now, so named because of the huge clock tower right behind you..."

Link turned around and tried to look up but, without a neck _per se_, could barely look higher than the door they'd just come out of. He stomped in frustration, trying to twist his head higher.

Tatl giggled. "You're cute when you're angry, you know that, Deku boy?" When he ignored her, she went on: "Give up. There's not much to see anyway, just a... clock. A big one. Now if you want to see some _real_ action, you'll want to hang around for the Festival of Time. That's in a few days, I think. I remember last year..."

Link squeaked, getting her attention.

"Mmm?" said Tatl, her eyes a burly man running past with a long wooden beam.

_How do I undo this curse?_, Link wanted to ask. He motioned at his own face, shaking his arms a little.

Tatl looked as bewildered as he was. "Sorry, I have no idea what you're saying. Are you hot?" Link shook his head quickly, and then ran his hands across his body, looking at her pointedly. "No? Okay... you want to see a mirror? No... there something on my face? No... you're wondering about the curse?"

He nodded quickly.

She frowned. "I'm no expert... okay, I'll take a look. Let's get out of the shade." She darted forward, beckoning him over to where the construction workers were assembling their tower. He hurried after her, out of the shadows, feeling an alien satisfaction as the morning light received his bark skin.

Waving for him to stand still, Tatl hovered up close to his face. "Ookie... let's see..." She looked him over intently, circling around his face and prodding methodically. When that was done she buzzed around his outstretched arms, then behind him. As he stood there, waiting, people moved past, paying him no attention. Being ignored was nothing new to him – no matter who you were or where you came from, grown-ups never paid any attention to the little people. He sighed, bemused despite himself.

Tatl finished her examination and returned to the bridge of his nose, making him cross his eyes to see her.

"Sorry, not a clue," she said with a shrug. "Could be a magic mask or a hex or something... magic isn't really my speciality."

_What is, then?_, thought Link, tilting his head a little.

"Um... no idea what you're saying," she sighed. "Anyway, I think the Great Faerie of Clock Town might know what's wrong with you. We should go see her."

He nodded

"Excuse me?" said somebody from behind him, tapping on his head. Link spun around to find himself looking at a Goron.

Now even compared to humans, Gorons are massive creatures. With their rock-hard skin and their perpetual frowns, one can't help but feel a little intimidated at the sight of one. For tiny Link, the sight was enough to force a knee-jerk reaction out of him. He squealed in fright and dashed backwards a few steps before Tatl brought him to his senses.

"You _wimp_!" she said, trying hard not to laugh. "What a little scaredy-cat! You..." She shook her head, covered her mouth and burst into snickers.

Link probably would have been blushing if he was still human. He craned his head, looking the Goron in the face.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you-goro," it said with an apologetic grimace and a gravelly accent. "It's just you didn't look busy so I thought I might ask you-goro... I just arrived here an hour ago and is there something wrong with the moon-goro?"

Link was still trying to work out what it had said, when Tatl gave a little gasp next to his ear. "Wingshreds." He gave her a look, and she whispered furiously, "Tell him we have no idea – oh, that's right, you can't talk..." She raised her voice, addressing the Goron. "Sorry, we don't know. Now, we're really busy, so _scram_!"

"Oh... I'm sorry-goro..." It ambled off, looking thoughtful.

Link gave Tatl a quizzical look. _Want to tell me what's going on?_

"Uh..." said Tatl. "Look up, straight up, and please don't panic on me."

He looked up (lying on his back to do so), bracing himself for the worst.

Right above them, floating above the great Clock Tower and staring straight down at him, was the ugliest, scariest face he'd ever seen. It had snarling teeth and bloodshot eyes that reminded him of his old foe Ganondorf, and was pockmarked with... craters? Link blinked a couple of times and realised that this was the _moon_, that the moon itself was giving him the death stare. He really was a long way from Hyrule...

"It's usually smiling..." said Tatl, sounding as unnerved as he felt. "This is really creeping me out..."

They stared, mesmerised...

The minute hand of the Clock Tower struck twelve and its bells began to ring. Each strike seemed to have a gravity of its own, leaving the buildings and the ground itself shuddering in its deafening wake.

As it rang for the ninth and last time, Link could have sworn he saw the face in the moon twitch. He blinked in surprise, and when he opened his eyes it seemed to have grown in size. Had the moon gotten... _closer_? He suddenly thought of an old tale he had heard years ago. In the story, the sky was falling and the Goddess of Power sent a mountain to hold it in place. Then creatures of evil tried to knock down the mountain, and... something. He'd forgotten how it ended. But this was no story, and the moon looked as if it could really fall. He felt a momentary shudder of claustrophobia and shook it off. He'd survived worse.

Tatl was restless; she was flying in circles around his head, muttering to herself. He didn't catch any words, but from her tone of voice she sounded very conflicted.

She growled. "Sorry, Deku kid, you and Skull Kid are gonna have to wait. Looks like we're taking a detour..."

* * *

**A/N:** Congratulations! You stuck through the story long enough to reach the author's note! (Or maybe you cheated and jumped to the end of the chapter.) By now you must probably wondering why on earth I'm doing a video game 'novelisation'. Don't those things usually fizzle out after the first few chapters? Here's hoping that this story is an exception to the rule...

The idea that inspired this story was: what if the events of Majora's Mask all occurred within a single timeline? If Link was unable to change the future? What would it be like running around Termina knowing that your past and future selves were also somewhere around you, working just as frantically as you? What if you knew someone would die, but were powerless to save them? Yep, time travel rocks. There will be five cycles (sets of three days) in this story: one dud one just like in the game, and one for each compass direction. That's a total of fifteen days spent trying to save the world; that's a long time to go without sleep. Also, as the darkest, creepiest (and possibly best) Zelda games, it would be sacrilege not to keep the atmosphere alive. As (hopefully) this first chapter hints, there's going to be a lot of dark stuff happening and a lot of twisted humour coming into play. Isn't Tatl such a cute little psycho?

As always, reviews make me feel warm and fuzzy inside:

- If you feel like offering criticism, I'd like to hear your thoughts on style, both in terms of atmosphere and readability. I'm hoping that this story survives to its conclusion, so I want to nip any pressing issues in the bud.  
- If you're only reading this 'cause you have me on author alert, and you've never played Majora's Mask, _good_. Let me know if this makes sense or if I'm skipping over crucial details.  
- If you are never going to read the rest of this story _tell me why_.

Enjoy, and try not to go mad.


	2. 72 hours

**INSOMNIA  
****based on **_**The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

* * *

"Hey, come on!" shouted Tatl, zipping through a crowd of early-morning shoppers. "If you can't keep up, I'll have to ditch you!"

_Who would open doors for you then?_, thought Link, frantically weaving around hundreds of pairs of knees, barely able to see the faerie through the crowd of unfamiliar faces.

"We're not far now!" Tatl called. She'd turned around to face him, flying backwards but still expertly zig-zagging through that sea of bobbing heads without running into anybody. By all means any normal faerie should have been splattered against a wall by now – did she have eyes in the back of her head or something?

Past the partly-built Festival Tower, through a narrow opening into a cobblestone side street, climbing uphill past any number of fruit-and-vegetable sellers and twice that many shoppers. Round another bend, past a gang of boys his age all wearing funny-shaped red hats, past a street-side stall with, oddly enough, the word 'BANK' written on it. Two more sharp turns, one not-so-sharp turn, a "shortcut" through a set of alleyways and out into a wide-open park area where lovers strolled and balloons hovered in the sky, and then they were in another wide-open street. Tatl came to an abrupt stop and so did he.

"We're here!" she declared helpfully.

Link was marveling at the size of this town. It was easily bigger than any place he have ever been before – even the castle town from his own Hyrule had nothing on this in sheer density. There must be thousands of people living here, he thought. The thought was a little staggering.

Tatl was watching him with a hint of impatience. "Hey, Deku kid! Are you going to sit there catching your breath all day, or are we going inside?"

He followed her pointing finger to a building fifty feet away. As they approached he noted the officious brass letters above the door: '_The Mayor's Official Residence_'. A little closer and he could make out the subtitle: '_Official Residence of the Mayor_'. Ten feet away: '_Open to the public from 10am to 8pm_'.

He glanced behind him, where the momentous clock tower was still in view: a quarter to ten. They were closed. With a short pantomime he pointed this out to Tatl.

She snorted. "Oh, as if anyone ever pays attention to that. Just go in."

Casting her a dubious look, Link reached up to his full height and tried the doorknob.

Locked.

"Something wrong?" said Tatl. "Go ahead, take your time... _no hurry_..."

_It's locked!_, he wanted to shout. Of course, he still had no idea how Deku scrubs talked – no voice box or throat, not even lungs as far as he could tell – and so he just gave her an angry stare until she got the point.

"What? Is there something on my face?... Uh, the _door_?... Wait, you can't open it?" (Nod.) "Too weak, huh?... Don't tell me it's _locked_?" (Nod.)

At this she burst into a surprised laugh, doubled over and hands on her stomach. "Are you _serious_? They locked the door to keep us out? People actually _do_ that? Haha... heh... hooboy. Wow. Wow... I didn't realise that locks were _real_...Skull Kid wasn't lying..."

It took Link supreme self-control not to burst into giggles at the absurdity of the situation. He snorted, breathed in, breathed out. There, better.

"Wow..." said Tatl, still staring at the door with an impressed look. Just as he was about to sit down, she spoke up: "_Locks_... Well, looks like we've got fifteen minutes to kill. You hungry?"

Now that she mentioned it... Link nodded.

She smiled. "Good. Let's go back to the west side. I'm pretty sure you Deku scrubs eat fruit, and there's plenty of people selling that down there."

She turned back the way they'd come, and led him out, much slower this time. As they walked Link looked around, taking in the atmosphere of the town. It really seemed like a nice place to live. Maybe when all of this was over-

"Hey," said Tatl, once again flipping over and flying backwards. "I almost forgot – you have any money on you?"

Link stopped, eyes widening. He'd lost all his money when she and her friends had robbed him. They were broke.

"I take that as a no?" said Tatl. "Aw... never mind..." She brushed up close to him and petted him on the nose. Then, she lowered her voice to a whisper, eyes twinkling mischievously.

"We can eat for free..."

**-oOo-**

Turns out Deku boy was a fast learner. Tatl was starting to like the kid.

"Hey! You!" she shouted, zipping over to the mark, a fruit stall which proudly advertised apples at two Rupees apiece.

The vendor, a tall partly-bald man with a moustache that covered his mouth, had to glance around for a few seconds before spotting Tatl. "Hello there, miss," he said cheerfully. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, sir," said Tatl brightly, hovering to the man's left so that he had to twist his neck to see her. "Me and my friends were arguing, and I was hoping you could settle a question for us.

"Well... sure, okay," the man said, glancing at the crowd to see if he was losing any potential customers. "What did you want to ask?"

Tatl giggled, "Well, it's um... this probably sounds kind of silly, but, er... is it true that you sell giant fruit? Like, super-big apples and lemons and stuff?"

He blinked, his eyes instinctively flicking to the nearest piece of fruit. Behind him, the Deku kid crept up on the stall, just outside of his vision.

"Giant fruit?" said the fruit seller. "No... I don't sell that..."

Tatl grinned cheekily. "You sure? 'Cause my friend, uh, Miera, she said she'd seen someone buy an apple as big as a pumpkin from you once, and bake it into the giantest pie you've ever seen."

He grinned back. "Sounds like your friend is spinning you faerie tales. If I knew where to find fruit that extraordinary I'd be a rich man."

She risked a glance behind his shoulder. Deku boy was scooping up apples and oranges into his funny little green cap. Masked by his height, if anybody else was looking their way they wouldn't see him – except that she was starting to lose the tall man's attention...

She groaned, moving up to the fruit man's ear so that he turned his head even further away from where her accomplice stood. "Guess you're right. Ooh... that little prissy, lying to me like that... hmm... hey, you wouldn't happen to have any rotten stuff lying around that I could borrow, would you?"

The fruit seller raised an eyebrow. He glanced to either side to see if anyone was watching, and then whispered back to her. "What exactly would you do to it?"

"Oh, nothing much," said Tatl, watching as her Deku friend disappeared back into the crowd. She started counting: one, two, three... "Just a harmless prank. I'd pay you back somehow. Maybe I could scare people away from the other fruit stalls or something." Five, six, seven...

He shook his head. "I don't know... I don't want to get mixed up in faerie affairs..." Nine, ten.

Tatl grinned. "Sure, sure. Anyway, thanks, gotta go!"

She well gone before he noticed anything amiss.

**-oOo-**

They ate the fruit in an alleyway right next to the Mayor's office, sitting propped up against a wall, with a couple of crows as their audience. The apples crunched in Link's mouth like melted snow – maybe it was just the thrill of the snatch, but these were the best he'd ever tasted.

"You're a natural thief, kid," said Tatl, perched on a lone leaf across from him. "You've really _never_ done anything like that before?"

Link shook his head. He felt a little surprised at himself – he'd always thought of himself as having a strong moral compass, but he didn't feel even slightly guilty over stealing the fruit. Maybe if the Goddesses hadn't intervened he could have stolen things for a living... Link, King of Thieves? Somehow that didn't sound right.

Tatl yawned. "Well, good job." Without warning she zipped onto the apple in Link's hand. "Hey, mind if I have a bite?"

Link nodded and then froze, shooting her a mystified look. None of the faeries he'd ever known had needed to eat...

Tatl regarded him curiously. "Let me guess... you think faeries don't need to eat, don'tcha?" She caught his slight nod and grinned, pulling a chunk out of the apple with her hands. "Yeah, we don't _need_ to eat. But that doesn't mean we can't."

He just kept staring at her.

Chewing on the chunk of fruit, Tatl squinted at him. "I mean... it tastes good, doesn't it? Most faeries have no idea what they're missing out on. Come on..."

She nudged the apple, encouraging him to take another bite.

**-oOo-**

The Mayor's office opened right on ten. With the clanging of keys the doors were unlocked from inside. A bored hand shoved them open and withdrew inside. Several people had pushed inside before Link could even get a foot in the door, all seeming to be in a great hurry and none of them stopping to hold the door open for him. He didn't even realise it closed by itself, and as he walked in it swung shut, bumping him from behind and making him fall flat on his face. With an annoyed grunt he pushed himself up, fully expecting Tatl to make some annoying joke at his expense.

"Hey, they got a new carpet!" chirped the faerie, staring awestruck at the fuzzy patterns on the floor. "And it's orange! My favourite!"

From further down the hall, somebody laughed mirthlessly. "First person to like the carpet."

At the end of the hall, kicking her heels up on a desk marked 'Secretary', was a bored-looking girl who couldn't have been older than twenty. She had green-dyed hair and wore silver earrings and an oversized purple top on which the words 'Colour me _Indigo_' were stitched. She didn't look up as they approached, absorbed in the difficult business of filing her nails.

Link squeaked, trying to get her attention. When she ignored him he tried again.

Slowly, unfolding her legs and arching her eyebrows, the Mayor's secretary looked them over slowly, taking in the madly-grinning faerie and the nervous Deku scrub. After a lengthy paused she turned back to her nails.

"Oh, dear," she sighed. "You on a field trip?"

Link and Tatl blinked and exchanged glances.

"Uh, no," said Tatl. "We wanted to ask the Mayor about the moon."

"The moon?" said the girl, her voice dripping with scepticism.

"Yeah, the moon," said Tatl, narrowing her eyes. "We've... well, _I've_ been out of town for a couple of days... and we were wondering what the deal was with the moon."

The girl cocked her other eyebrow. "Were you, now?"

Link felt Tatl twitch. "Have you been outside at _all _this week?" she snapped. "The face in the moon... is _not smiling_... doesn't that seem a little totally _unusual_? Have you been paying any attention to _anything _in between doing your nails? What kind..."

Link took a few discreet steps back.

"Oh, _that_ moon!" said the secretary with a smirk. "Why didn't you say-"

"Just _let us talk to the Mayor_," snarled Tatl, zooming right in front of her nose and waving a tiny fist, "before I do something you'll _regret_..."

Adjusting her 'Indigo' top, the secretary smiled sweetly. "I'm sorry, but the Mayor is currently in an important meeting and is not to be disturbed."

The faerie was unfazed. "Yeah? Well, when's he going to be out, huh?"

"I'm sorry, do you have an appointment?"

"Since when do we need an appointment to see _our_ Mayor?"

"Please don't raise your voice. They're having a meeting in there."

"You know what? I don't believe you. I think you're a loser who doesn't get out enough and is _lying_ to annoy me to make up for the fact that you don't have any friends-"

"And you're a whiny little insect who isn't going to be getting an appointment for at least another month now-"

"Oh, yeah? Well, I'll be telling the Mayor just how _useless _you are!"

"Did I hear a fly buzzing?"

"You... you birdbrain," spat Tatl, shooting the secretary a look of utmost loathing.

A split second later she was by Link's side again, smiling serenely. Her sudden calmness was profoundly disconcerting. "Come on, let's go," she said.

_Go where?_, thought Link as Tatl led him straight past the secretary's desk and towards a short corridor.

The green-haired secretary sighed, "You can't go in there without an appointment. I'm warning you." She didn't look up from her nails as they went past.

"I hope she cuts her fingers off," said Tatl, slowing as the corridor turned abruptly into a door. She cocked her head, giving Link an expectant look.

Link gingerly tried the door. It wasn't locked.

Inside: cosy sofas, plush carpets, and walls lined with portraits. There was a pungent odour in the air, which was a bit like rotten fish but might have been powerful perfume. Two faces in mid-conversation looked up at the entering guests.

Reclined on one sofa was a broad woman whose face was smothered with so much make-up that her wrinkles glowed. She sized Link up as soon he walked into the room, puffing smoke with a look of slight surprise on her face.

"Dear me..." she said loudly. "Are you a student at Deku Elementary?"

Link started to squeak and caught himself. After five seconds of silence had passed he prodded at Tatl.

"Wha...? Oh. Um, no, we're not. I want the May-"

"Are the fins damp lately?"

They spun at the interruption.

Taking up most of the other couch, with his large fishlike face and his pale-blue skin, was a Zora who looked very much like... King Zora? Link blinked; that was impossible. The Zoras, the fish-people of Hyrule, had never travelled far from his homeland, certainly not as far as this Termina place. Ah... now that he looked closely, the eyes were narrower, the face longer, the bones in different places. But the resemblance was uncanny. And who'd have thought that there were any Zoras at all this far from home? In Link's experience they didn't take well to travel on land, especially not when-

Tatl squinted. "_What _did you just say?"

"That's the greeting used amongst us Zora," the fishman said with a shrug.

Tatl sighed. "Oh... well, _thanks_, thanks a lot..."

The Zora didn't notice the sarcasm. "You can tell that to your teacher at Deku Elementary. She'd be impressed."

"We are _not_ from Deku Elementary!" yelled Tatl, buzzing her wings angrily. "Now where's the Mayor?"

**-oOo-**

The green-haired secretary smirked as they scampered past. "Wrong room?"

"Your band _sucks_!" spat Tatl.

**-oOo-**

Inside the Mayor's office an argument was in full swing.

On one side of the room stood two moustached men, in cheap tight clothes that showed off their muscular bulk. They were some of the carpenters who only minutes earlier had been hard at work building the festival tower in the town square. The older of the two was standing in front, doing all the talking; the other just seemed to be there for show. They both stood, arms crossed and muscles rippling, staring daggers at the soldiers on the other side of the room.

The stripes and emblems on the soldiers' armour made them look very high-ranking indeed. With their shadowy steel helmets their eyes were invisible, lending them an almost-inhuman appearance. They both stood stiffly at attention, clutching standard-issue spears in their hands like security blankets. One of them hadn't moved for the last twenty minutes; the other one seemed to be in charge, speaking every now and then in terse, clipped syllables. They stared back at the carpenters, each side trying to out-intimidate the other.

Sitting at his desk in the crossfire was the Mayor of Clock Town, a man in his late fifties with a ridiculous moustache and goatee that did little to obscure the wrinkles and frown lines that dug into his face. His eyes darted from side to side, twitching every time somebody spoke.

"I should think," said the head carpenter, raising his voice, "that a town guard that _pulled its weight _wouldn't scurry away like scared rats from something as little as this. Look at the citizens. Do they seem worried by the moon?"

"Most of the townsfolk have already taken shelter without waiting for the Mayor's orders," replied the head soldier curtly. "In fact the only ones left-"

"Have you looked outside?" said the carpenter, waving his arms. "The streets are as busy as ever! If you don't want to be level-headed, Viscen, then-"

Nobody paid any attention to the faerie and the Deku scrub who slipped into the room.

"You will address me as Captain, _civilian_," snapped Captain Viscen. "And as I was saying, everybody except for your belligerent committee members are _preparing_ to leave..."

"Hmph," snorted the carpenter. "Lies and more lies."

The captain lifted his head. "Mayor Dotour, Carnival Committee members, come to your senses! Order those who remain to evacuate!"

All heads in the room swivelled to the Mayor. He hunched his shoulders and sunk slightly into his chair. "Ah... hmm... well..."

"You cowards!" roared the head carpenter. "Do you actually believe the moon will fall?" He motioned up at the skylight. "I won't deny it looks different, but honestly, let's be level-headed for a moment! When has the moon ever done anything to hurt us? The confused townsfolk simply caused a panic by believing this ridiculous – this _groundless_ – theory..."

"I'll show you groundless," muttered Viscen, his hand tightening around his spear.

The carpenter seemed to hear. "So the citizens were running around terrified, scared that this harmless pebble was going to bump them on their heads, and what did the town guard do about it? Nothing! The soldiers couldn't prevent the panic, so to cover themselves they're pretending to go along with the whole ridiculous thing! You want answers? The answer is that the carnival should _not_ be cancelled... isn't that right, Mr Mayor?"

Mayor Dotour's mouth opened and closed; opened and closed.

"Um, excuse me?" said Tatl edgewise.

"Are you serious, Mutoh?" Captain Viscen exclaimed. "Has that giant chunk of rock failed to catch your eye?"

"Oh, I've seen it," said the carpenter, Mutoh, "believe me, I've seen it, and there's nothing to..."

Viscen talked over him. "At this time every year we are overrun by tourists! So why is the town empty?"

"Excuse me?" said Tatl loudly.

Mutoh shook his head. "Rumours like this spread like wildfire."

"It's not a rumour," said Viscen, making a conscious effort to lower his tone. "Surely you've done the maths. Everybody has. At the rate the moon is coming, it will flatten us in a little less than seventy-two hours."

Mutoh the head carpenter laughed softly. "Oh, Viscen... _Captain _Viscen... you're going to look like such a fool when the sun rises in three days..."

The Mayor straightened his back a little, apparently at ease now that the shouting had resided.

Viscen relaxed too. "Say what you like... but we're all going to be flattened like pancakes in three days unless we do something..."

Viscen raised his free hand palm up; the universal gesture of goodwill. "Look, Mutoh... I understand you're in a difficult position. Clearly it's your job to ensure the carnival's operation, but that's if people are here for it. I commend you for standing in the face of danger, but please don't drag the merchants and the soldiers into this."

"...mmm... hmm..." offered Mayor Dotour.

Tatl tried again. "Could I interrupt for a moment...?"

All heads in the room turned to look at her and her friend.

Trying to clear her mind, she said, "Uh, what's going on? What was that about the sky falling?"

The captain of the guard spoke. "Faerie, five days ago..." (_Five?_ Had she really been gone for that long?) "...the moon started looking like... well, you see it now. And it's been getting closer ever since."

"Trick of the mind," grumbled Mutoh.

Viscen half-shrugged. "Whatever you want to call it, it certainly _looks_ like the moon will land right on top of us."

"Don't go fanning the fire, now," rumbled Mutoh warningly. "The moon may be a little funny but nobody's in any danger, kids. Just ignore it and enjoy the Festival of Time and the carnival afterwards. It all happens in three days, you'll want to be around for it..."

"You can't say that!" said Viscen in disbelief. "He can't say that, can he, Mayor Dotour?"

"Er..."

"Exactly! Children, even if there was a chance that we aren't in danger, which there isn't, we have to err on the side of caution. Leave town while there's still time."

"Hah!" said Mutoh. "If the _soldiers_ wish to run, then run, Viscen! We councilmen will stick to tradition."

"Tradition? The carnival is going to go up in flames..."

"The carnival will be a success! I've never heard of a defence unit abandoning its _own town_..."

The men glared at each other.

Mutoh added, "Surely Madame Aroma would say the same thing, wouldn't she, Mayor Dotour?"

The Mayor gaped as if he'd forgotten he was in the room. "Let's... let's not bring my wife into this..."

"You take refuge too!?" exclaimed Mutoh, turning on the Mayor.

"All must take refuge!" shouted Viscen, waving his spear in the air.

"On with the carnival!" Mutoh yelled right back, taking a step forward.

"Please... just..." said the Mayor, almost invisible behind his desk.

Link shut the door behind him.

**-oOo-**

"Can you believe that, Deku boy?" said Tatl once they were safely out of the building. "The end of the world? Fire and brimstone?" She shook her head. "This can't be happening..."

Link just pointed at the moon. Reluctantly she turned to look.

It glared down at the world with bloodshot eyes and cavernous craters streaking across its body. From this angle it seemed to be looking right at them, staring down its prey as it came in for the kill. Its jagged teeth were gnashed together, mountains grinding against one another.

Tatl stared at it for a few long seconds, breathing out slowly. Then she looked Link in the eye.

"If we're fast we can be out of the country by sundown."

He nodded.

They ran.

* * *

**A/N:** (Very heroic, Link, very heroic.) I felt the story wouldn't make much sense unless I included the scene in the Mayor's, so... I did. Let me know if it dragged. Still feel like I'm finding my footing with the characterisation - Link is going to have to talk eventually, but for now it's fun trying to describe his personality without using dialogue.

Hey, kids! Tatl wants _you_ to eat more fruit!


	3. Run!

**INSOMNIA  
****based on **_**The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

* * *

She could see her new companion was already fatigued from all the running around they'd done this morning. She could tell that he had no idea how to make efficient use of those stumpy wooden legs. Hell, Tatl even felt a bit sorry for him. But no way was she letting him slow down more than they already had – the moon was falling and every second counted.

She suppressed a groan as the Deku boy stumbled over his feet again, slowing them down for a few valuable moments.

"Can you get any slower!?" she said, waiting for him to catch up. "Have you forgotten about that _thing_ up there?" She jerked her head up at the moon, some deep-seated part of her telling her not to call the massive rock by its name.

The Deku boy narrowed his eyes at her but picked up the pace, navigating the hairpin turns and narrow staircases of eastern Clock Town with clumsy little movements which managed to get the job done.

"Glad we're on the same page," muttered Tatl. She pointed up ahead. "There! See? The town gates are just there."

She'd meant that as a lie, but when she looked up the nearest gate out of town _was_ already in sight, the solid brick town walls opening up into a narrow passageway that lead to the outside world. That was a relief.

Deku boy looked like he felt the same way. As they neared the gate he skittered along with renewed vigour, closing the distance in no time.

A lone soldier manned the eastern gate, legs slightly crouched and spear clutched two-handed, scanning the crowds, ready to protect the peace at a moment's notice. Above and behind him was a heavy-looking iron portcullis with matching grooves in the ground and an impressive orange coat-of-arms nailed into its centre. Ever-alert, his eyes had already narrowed before Tatl and her friend were within speaking distance of him.

"Stop right there!" he said, raising a palm.

"What?" said Tatl. "We were just leaving..." She poked the Deku kid a little closer to the gate.

The guard on duty looked very concerned. "Are you two alone? Deku scrub, where are your parents? Is there an adult I can talk to?"

Tatl's jaw dropped. "_Excuse_ me? I'm older than your-"

He cut her off. "I'm sorry, miss. It's dangerous outside the town walls, so I cannot allow you two to pass unaccompanied."

"Well, I-" Wait, _what_? Did he just say...? Tatl blinked disbelievingly. "Did you just say it was dangerous _outside_ the town walls? Haven't you noticed..."

The soldier grimaced. "The moon...? Yes, but I'm stuck with my orders. Until we can get an evacuation order from the mayor's office itself, the town guard is strictly business as usual."

After the scene she'd just observed at the Mayor's, Tatl had no intention of waiting for that order to come through. "You couldn't just let us... slip through?" she tried.

"No exceptions," he said with resigned determination. "I'm sorry. You'll have to wait for the evacuation order. Isn't there an adult you could-?"

"Oh, for goodness' sake," said Tatl, flying right over his head. She spun around, sticking her tongue out. "Try and stop me, spear-man."

"Hey, you can't-!" the guard began. Behind him, the Deku boy stared at her incredulously.

"Sorry, kid," she said to the latter, "but it's every girl for herself."

His eyes widened. Aw, the guilt card. Deku scrubs were great at playing the guilt card

Tatl smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be fine! You seem like a smart kid!" She waved. "See ya!"

And with the wind whistling in her face she flew out of town as fast as her wings would take her: out, flying far and further still into the fields beyond the town walls, where the morning sun shone into her face and lit the path before her...

**-oOo-**

Link was feeling lost. Now that his guide had abandoned him (surprise, surprise), he'd hesitantly ventured into the mazes of alleyways, and backed out just as quickly after realising how many criss-crossing side streets there were. Having backtracked to the east gate, he'd just decided to follow the town walls around when-

"Hey! Wait for me!"

He turned around. A bright yellow faerie zipped towards him from down the road, heading straight for him. She wasn't slowing down and he hopped out of the way at the last second, making her overshoot by a good few metres before boomeranging back to where he was.

_You can't have been gone more than four minutes_, thought Link, as Tatl spun around to face him.

"Phew... thought I'd lost you..." She looked very flustered; her pupils were dilated and her hair misplaced. "I changed my... mind..." She blinked a couple of times, her eyes focusing. "Couldn't just... leave you... behind... I, uh... I felt guilty..."

'Guilty'? Coming from her? _Totally _convincing. He folded his arms and waited for her to catch her breath.

"What?" Tatl said defensively. "I'm serious! I thought it would be... rude to just leave a dumb little scrub like you all by yourself. Come on, let's get going!" She started off down the road, then turned around to find that he hadn't budged.

Dead silence.

"I don't want to talk about it," humphed Tatl.

Begrudgingly, he walked to where she was. He cocked his head to one side, wondering the obvious: _Well, what next?_

"I think," said Tatl, "that maybe we shouldn't be in such a rush to go out into the field. No offence, but the guard was right, you don't look like you could protect yourself out there in the field. I mean, there's all sorts of nasty monsters out there. And birds."

She had a point, Link realised. The curse was going to be a huge disadvantage in a fight, what with his weaker body and his distinct lack of useful weapons.

"So anyway," continued Tatl, "maybe we should go see the Great Faerie. I mean, you want to find Skull Kid and get that curse off you, right? The Great Faerie will know what he's up to. She watches over everything. And she's, like, the world expert on magic curses. She'll have you human again in no time."

Link tried his best to be reassured by her words.

They set off again, down the wide lane that ran through most of east Clock Town.

Tatl was setting a much more relaxed pace now, so Link had time to notice the odd assortment of shops and houses that peppered the sides of the road, including one mysterious-looking building with no identifying markings aside from a cow motif painted on its door. Its walls were literally covered in graffiti; not like the tiny little words scrawled in chalk below shop front windows but giant sprawling geometric designs with words randomly interspersed. On top of this, like a second layer of images, were crude stick figures: tiny ones with dots for eyes and big ones with crosses. Here and there large smudgy patches suggested that someone had tried to scrub the marks of vandalism away and had failed mystery. But before Link could puzzle out the mystery of the building with the cow on the door they had moved past it, and his faerie guide seemed in no mood for slowing down...

...no mood, that is, until they were in front of the Mayor's office again. Tatl abruptly came to a halt, and, not noticing, Link bumped into her head-first.

"Wingshreds!" she shrieked, tumbling through the air for a couple of seconds as she fought to regain her balance. Her wings buzzed furiously as she traced a giant 'C' in the air. When she was upright again she turned to glare at him. "You oaf! Watch where you're going! Are you trying to get us killed?"

Link shook his head.

"Sweet faerie tears, I think I'll almost be glad when we get you uncursed..." Tatl sighed, fiddling with her hair. She jerked her head at the alleyway next to the Mayor's building. "Let's grab our stuff before we go."

Stuff? Link blinked in puzzlement. They didn't have-

With a wary glance at the people walking around them, Tatl dropped her voice. "You know... the _food_... the stuff you _eat_?"

Oh... _that_... Link nodded. Between the impending apocalypse and being trapped within the city walls, he'd forgotten about leaving behind the rest of their pilfered apples.

"Good," said Tatl. "I'll stay here and keep a lookout. You grab 'em."

Half a minute later Link re-emerged from the shadows, his empty palms raised to either side. Tatl read the situation immediately.

"You can't find them," she said incredulously. "You can't remember which brick we hid them behind?"

He gave her an annoyed look. The fruit hadn't been there, period. And was this detour really that necessary?

"You think they were _stolen_?" said Tatl. "That's impossible. That alley's a dead end. Nobody goes in there. Did you forget? It's four bricks up and seven right from the funny-coloured one. Go look again."

He shook his head. They were wasting time here when they could be dealing with his curse.

"Fine," snapped Tatl. "Be that way. Let those poor things rot." She started forward, determinedly avoiding his eyes. "Ugh... I guess faeries and Deku scrubs don't need to eat anyway..."

He didn't? Link frowned. Why had he felt hungry, then?

**-oOo-**

"Nearly there," said Tatl, as they emerged from the endless alleyways into a wide open area.

Link's eyes goggled as he looked around: smack in the middle of this overbuilt red-and-brown town was an open expanse of grass and trees, dotted with odd stone sculptures here and there. Nobody here seemed to be in a rush; instead couples strolled hand-in-hand down the dirt paths, occasionally gesturing up at the sky (where, no doubt, the moon still looked as evil as ever – he didn't particularly want to check), while dogs and children ran around with limitless zeal. The illusion of open space had almost tricked Link's eyes into believing they had stepped out into the countryside, but then, staring past the trees, he saw not the blue afternoon horizon but another fragment of the city walls, complete with a gate and guard just like the ones they had just trekked from. They were still in a cage. Nonetheless, this place was truly a breath of fresh air.

"You like it?" chirped Tatl. "This park basically _is_ north Clock Town. Pretty peaceful, huh?"

They passed through a patch where the grass had been trampled to death. Standing nearby, a little boy in a red cap was playing around with a blowgun, shooting tiny little pellets into the air. Link followed their trajectories with his eyes – the pellets arced away from the kid, curving up into the air and falling just short of a hovering purple balloon. With that part of his mind that Link normally used to size up enemies, he noted that although the boy lacked the strength to launch his projectiles into his target, he had very good aim. He wouldn't want to get on the wrong end of that blowgun.

Tatl whispered into his ear. "Aw, ain't that cute? He can't hit it."

For someone as impatient and rude as her, she was really good at stating the obvious.

She pointed up ahead, where the grassy park suddenly turned back into buildings and lanes. "See there? That little tunnel? The Great Faerie's place is right through there."

Link nodded. Suddenly he was feeling anxious. What if this turned out to be a dead end, too? If the Great Faerie didn't know how to fix him, how long would he be stuck like this?

The little faerie sensed his worry. "Hey, don't sweat," Tatl said, patting him on the head. "You're in good hands." She rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "I mean, well, I have no idea where the Skull Kid learned to curse people like that, but between you and me, the Skull Kid is no match for the Great Faerie."

That did cheer him up a little bit, and he didn't hesitate as the path they were taking sloped down and disappeared between building foundations and the side of a hill. He looked at Tatl, but she was humming, lost in a pleasant daydream.

Link had visited a few Great Faerie dwellings in his time, and this one didn't look much different. It started off with a short, winding tunnel, which no doubt would lead to a magical fountain somewhere further down. As the natural light faded away behind them it gave way to a soothing, mystical glow that flickered in all the different colours of the rainbow. The ground seemed to morph beneath their feet, turning from dirt to rough stone to marble.

He took another five steps and suddenly the end of the path swam into view. They entered into the Great Faerie Fountain, a wide, circular room that seemed to stretch on forever up, water gushing down along the sides of the walls and splashing into a pool at the room's centre. The water in the pool leaped in and out, a fountain powered not by pipes and plumbing but by magic in its rawest form, leaving tiny trails of light as little and big spouts appeared and disappeared chaotically. Light shone from who knows where, illuminating every little facet of the intricate architecture and leaving not a single shadow left in the room. Tiny little faeries floated around aimlessly, a cloud of pinpoint lights that shifted and swayed. This was the sort of place it would be easy to fall asleep in. Maybe it was the magic in the air, but fountains like this one had always felt... happy...

"Ah..." sighed Tatl, breathing in the surroundings. "Here we are, Deku boy. Good luck." She faced the pool in the centre of the room, cupped her hands and shouted: "Hey! Great Faerie! You've got a visitor!"

She dropped her hands and waited.

The room seemed to shimmer for a moment. Link looked up at the space above the fountain, waiting. But another few minutes passed and nothing happened.

Tatl rolled her eyes. "Gods, that old crone can't let a grudge go, can she?" She raised her voice again. "Great Faerie! It's not just me! I've brought someone with me! He needs your help!"

Feeling a little restless, Link stepped off the marble path that led up to the raised fountain, and into the water. It was quite shallow, even for his deformed body, and he started to wander around, dragging his hand across the walls of the room as he waited.

Tatl was looking quite annoyed at this point, her temper rising as she kept talking to the unresponsive fountain. "Okay, Great Faerie, come on! I know you're in there! You're always in there! I'll wait all day if I have to, so come out and help the stupid kid already!"

Link's hand hit a bump and he stopped, puzzled. Looking closely at that spot on the wall, he spotted a tiny little crack running up and down along the walls. Strange... The crack stopped just short of the waterline, but as he looked up it seemed to run a lot further. All too quickly his neck reached maximum extension and with an annoyed squeak he took a few steps back to get a better view.

"Look, I'm _sorry_," snapped Tatl to the empty fountain. "There. I said it. Are you happy now? You can come out! Come _out_!" She folded her arms, pouting. "Sheesh... who's being immature, now, miss Great-and-high-and-mighty Faerie? 'Cause it's not _me_..."

A high-pitched squeak from Deku boy broke her concentration. "What?" she said, looking at him. "Look, the Great Faerie is acting like a baby right now. I don't think she's coming out while I'm still in the room. How about I give you two some time alo- oh..."

Her attention had been caught, not by the tiny little crack but by the massive circular dent in the wall a few metres above it. Link was hopping and pointing at it, looking really freaked out, and she could sympathise... that thing was solid stone. Around the dent was a spiderweb of tiny little cracks, and in the water below she could see chunks of rock that had fallen from the walls.

Now that they were looking for it, there were other signs of damage in the room. The flow of water had stopped in some places, magically parting around long diagonal burn marks that started high and ended up beneath the water where they still bubbled angrily. The gentle chiming of water against stone was off somehow, a faint note of discord sounding through it. Needles stuck out from the sides of the fountain, tracing a zigzagging line that wove around it then disappeared into the water. The surface of the water had completely frozen in some parts and had turned strange colours in others. And as Link looked more closely at one of the faeries floating around the room he found it was unmoving, neck and limbs twisted at impossible angles and floating past like a corpse in a riptide. He stumbled back in shock, landing against the wall.

It was a few minutes before Tatl found the voice to speak.

"What the hell happened in here?"

Nobody answered.

* * *

**A/N:** The way things are going, you're going to be seeing some very short chapters up ahead. Be warned. (Any guesses why Tatl came back? I tried to make it as obvious as possible, because the idea seemed really cute to me...)


	4. Strays and Faeries

**INSOMNIA  
****based on **_**The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

* * *

**The Great Faerie Fountain  
Clock Town**

This had to be a nightmare. No way could all this damage to the Fountain possibly be real. As far as Tatl could remember, in the entire history of Clock Town nobody had been insane enough to try to attack the Great Faerie on her own home turf. But – she pinched herself to make sure – clearly someone had done just that. And by the looks of it, that someone had succeeded. She felt a shiver running down her spine just thinking about it.

Link was feeling nauseated. His best chance of being uncursed had just vanished, and now who knew how long he'd be stuck as a – wait, never mind, the moon was going to drop any day now. How comforting.

To distract himself he took a closer look at one of the faeries floating lifelessly around the room. It looked like any other: slender long limbs, dragonfly wings and a disproportionately large head. Link wondered whether it was still alive. Its eyes were rolled back into its head, and its arms and legs were pointing away at freakish angles which suggested otherwise, but its body was still giving a faint orange glow.

Tatl approached him, her eyes sliding dazedly past the carnage and focusing on him only.

"I... I don't understand..." she said at length. "This isn't possible... I mean, obviously it is, it just happened, but it's _not possible_. You can't just walk up to the Great Faerie and hurt her. There's all sorts of enchantments and safeguards in place. I think... I don't know..."

An broken needle was floating in the water towards Link. He took an unconscious step back.

Tatl started to circle, her eyes sliding straight through him. "Okay, Deku boy... don't panic, okay? We can figure something out. Maybe you don't need the Great Faerie's help. Maybe, uh... um..."

She fell silent, avoiding his gaze.

Link turned his attention back to the fallen faeries. If any of them were still alive, maybe they might know something that he and Tatl didn't. He took a cautious step towards the one closest to him, and reached out to touch it-

With a sharp _crack_, a tiny arc of lightning leaped from the faerie to his outstretched hand. He cried out, pulling his hand back in.

Tatl looked at Link quizzically. Before he could explain, he sensed something in his peripheral vision.

The dead faerie who had given him the static shock suddenly wasn't looking so dead any more. It twitched and stirred, its eyelids and wings fluttering alike. It looked at him blearily. All around the room, the other faeries were doing the same, and as they awoke they began to glow brightly, like a shifting constellation of night time stars.

The constellation began to take shape. From all sides of the room, the faeries began to drift towards the fountain at the centre. As they got closer their glows became indistinguishable, a blurry cloud of orange light.

The other faerie in the room snuck up on Link from behind, surprising him by suddenly hissing in his ear:

"What the hell did you just do?"

He shrugged helplessly.

Tatl sighed. "Look, I don't know whether your tiny mind can comprehend this, but _don't touch anything_ unless I tell you to!"

The faeries in the middle of the room were now circling around in different directions, tracing a giant sphere above the central fountain. He counted thirty, maybe forty of them. As they moved they all turned to face in Link's direction, their eyes boring straight through him.

"Creepy," observed Tatl.

Link was about to swat her when the sphere of faeries opened their mouths and spoke as one:

"You... young one... hear my plea..."

Tatl regarded the other faeries with clinical curiosity. "Oh, of _course_, silly me... hi, Great Faerie..."

_Great Faerie?_, thought Link. He stifled a surprised squeak. He'd been expecting a person, not a hive mind.

"We have been broken..." moaned the faerie chorus, shuddering on the spot. "Broken and shattered to pieces by the masked Skull Kid..."

"By _who_?" Tatl said, dropping a few inches in shock. She shook her head. "You have _got _to be kidding me. Skull Kid wouldn't hurt a maggot. Not to mention he's scared of you."

The conversation felt like it was flying straight over Link's head. He looked between the two, baffled.

The faerie chorus replied: "No time... our strength is weak... we must hibernate..."

"What do _I _do?" said Tatl. "Is there any way I can help, or, you know, maybe we could just sit around and wait for the world to end..."

"There is... a way..."

"Well, spit it out!"

"We are... incomplete... our number is missing one... please... find the one stray faerie lost in town, and bring her back here... when all of us are together... only then we can be restored... hurry and find the-"

"Okay, we get the point, thanks," said Tatl, giving Link a light shove. "Deku boy! Stop wasting time and get a move on!"

Before he could protest he was being ushered out of the Great Faerie's fountain, the faeries behind him giving one last moan: "Hurry..."

He shot Tatl a bewildered look. _Care to explain?_

She shook her head. "Not 'til we're outside. This isn't a good place to talk."

Tatl remained silent as they navigated the twisting tunnel, the magical light receding behind them to be replaced with a pale glow from outside. The marble floor turned back to stone and then to dirt, and as they approached the end of the tunnel Link could feel a light breeze ahead.

When they got outside, they stopped to savour the fresh air. The park was all but empty, and the stars were out...

**CYCLE 0: CLAUSTROPHOBIA  
NIGHT of the FIRST DAY**

"So it's kind of a secret," said Tatl. "Nobody knows... well, actually, everybody kind of _assumes _that Great Faeries have just been around since the beginning of time. But she's only as old as Clock Town. Makes sense if you think about it. That's why her place is where it is."

They were in the south – maybe west – quarter, and for some hours they'd been scouring town, trying to find an orange faerie that looked like the ones in the fountain. This was exactly the sort of task responsible for the invention of clichés like 'needle in a haystack'.

They passed a building with several pot plants out front. Tatl gestured to them, and as Link started to dig through them she continued to talk quietly.

"Great Faeries are just groups of, uh, like-minded faeries. If you've ever seen one – oh, you have? There you go. When you get a bunch of highly magical creatures together, lace the ground with all sorts of power-enhancing runes and gemstones, and then they all perform a certain spell at the same time... that's what you get. A big fat stinky faerie who never goes outside, creating and consuming lots and lots of energy."

No luck with the pot plants. They'd already covered the whole street, so they started down another random path.

"Problem with the bonding spell is that you're no longer you," Tatl went on. "Your personality, thoughts, hopes, dreams... everything remotely interesting gets mashed up with everyone else's. That's why Great Faeries are so few and far between... nobody in their right minds would want to give all that up just for a little extra magic power. Well, a _lot_ of extra magic power. But still... yeah... I'd hate that, wouldn't you?..."

She stared sadly at the moon.

"I wonder where Tael is right now... the poor little boy's probably sleeping... he must be so worried..."

Link didn't honesty feel that sorry for Tatl or her little brother. After all, all he remembered of Tael was a purple speck of light hovering over the Skull Kid's shoulder as he cast his curse upon Link.

As if reading his mind, Tatl gave him a forlorn smile. "They're not bad people, Deku boy... Tael was always a bit of a child. He treats everything like it's one big game." She laughed. "There's this thing he would always... he'd find a way to sneak up on me when I wasn't looking, and then he'd grab me by the ankle" - she mimed - "and then zoom up like this, see?, and flip me upside down. And then he'd make this incredibly crummy joke... I'm not going to say it... and then I would- hell, I'll say it. He'd be like, 'What's wrong, Sis, bird got your tail?' Hey, don't snicker! You had to be there to get it. And then I'd be all, Tael, you're as good as birdseed, I'm going to make you wish you were dead. Something like that. He could dodge real well.

"If only I could just knock some sense in to him every once in a while. He's a good kid, he just doesn't know when to quit, know what I mean?"

She met his eyes for a moment, suddenly remembered who she was talking to, blinked and sprouted a bored expression on her face.

The path opened up into a wider area. They were back in the town square, the first part of Clock Town that Link had seen back that morning. It felt like forever had passed since then.

"Hey, look at that, the festival tower's coming along," she said, voice raised.

The builders had made some progress since earlier that day. The wooden structure in the middle of the square now rose to three or four stories, wide at the base and narrow at the top. They were still working even at this late hour, working in a steady rhythm, ferrying planks of wood from outside the town gates into a pile next to their construction.

A shrill _yip!_ startled Link. He tensed at the sound, quickly looking around for the source of the noise. On the other side of the square a tiny little terrier was barking madly at them.

Link relaxed; Tatl didn't. She lowered her voice, speaking edgily.

"We might want to get out of here..."

_Oh, really? _The puppy (now bounding towards them) didn't appear to have an owner nearby to get in trouble with. One of the carpenters gave them a bemused glance but otherwise seemed unconcerned. _What could-_

The fluffy little dog collided with Link with a loud _yap_, literally knocking him off his feet and sending him flying backwards. He landed face-up in a shallow water feature he hadn't noticed before, his breath momentarily knocked out with the force of the impact.

"Yeah," said Tatl, "dogs don't really _like _Deku scrubs."

_You could have mentioned that before. _Link scrambled to his feet. The little terrier was growling gently, reared and ready to pounce. Warily, Link dropped his centre of gravity, ready to move.

"I forgot you're not usually a Deku," said Tatl. "Sorry. Hey, at least your head's made of wood. Otherwise you'd probably have cracked your skull. Hehe, lucky, huh?"

The puppy sprang forward, making a beeline for Link's wooden snout. As he registered the movement he was already dodging to the side, skidding along on a single pointy foot that ripped a line through the shallow water. The puppy landed right next to him with an angry splash, immediately launching into another leap.

Tatl frowned thoughtfully. "Then again, if you were human you wouldn't be in this mess." She rubbed her chin. "Guess you can't win them all."

Experience from countless battles was telling him to spread his weight, raise his arms up to protect his eyes, and to absorb the blow with as much surface area as possible. For some inexplicable reason, his Deku body was telling him to stand on one leg. He went for the former option. The dog hit him, bouncing off onto the ground, and he tried to hold his balance... but Deku legs were apparently pathetic at digging into the ground so instead he found himself sliding backwards. He hit the edge, fell over backwards, and was still moving so fast that he rolled over twice before coming to his feet.

This was ridiculous. He had no friction in this body. He could barely stand still without sliding.

"Ouch," said Tatl, finally noticing the skirmish. "Deku kid, stop trying to fight like a human!"

He shot her a _Please explain?_ look, the rest of his attention focused on the puppy, who was still barking like mad.

"Have you ever seen a Deku scrub fi- no, probably not..." She bit her lip, thinking. "Ever seen ice sk-" Just as she finished the last word the dog started to run towards him.

Once again that isolated fragment of Deku instinct was telling him to stand on one leg. Well, this fight couldn't get much more painful or embarrassing anyway...

As the dog ran at him he ran at the dog, his fighter's skills acutely aware of the distance between them. As they closed within attacking distance of each other, the dog leapt forward again. This time Link took another step and _leaned into it_, sliding forward on a single limb, arms outstretched like an amateur ballerina. He realised he was no more unstable than he had been on two legs, and with the puppy sailing straight at his face his adrenaline-addled mind was screaming, _you're vulnerable you can't defend like this you are vulnerable you're going to get hit badly the only thing you can do on one leg is –_ oh, of course–

At the last minute he threw his arms down diagonally, the force of the movement sending him spinning in circles. He hit the puppy with a perfect pirouette, his outstretched arms moving so fast they seemed to cut through the very air. The movement perfectly absorbed the angry terrier's momentum, sending it rebounding off towards the ground where it landed on its side with a pained bark.

Link didn't see any of this; all he saw was the world spinning past in a dizzying blur. As he spun to a halt he had enough time to see the puppy backing away warily before Tatl was steering him away from the scene.

"Congratulations," she muttered frenetically, "it takes most Deku scrubs years to master the spin attack, now let's _get out of here_ before someone decides to arrest you for waking up half the town with your little fight."

They took a little staircase at one corner of the square, followed the town walls for a while, and soon arrived at another secluded area. Prominent was a running stream which divided the area in two, flowing from one heavily-grilled side to another. A little bridge spanned it. There were flowers growing unchecked on both banks, attended to by butterflies and other such insects.

"This is the laundry pool," explained Tatl. "It's the most convenient spot in town for doing washing and so on. It gets pretty crowded around midday."

Movement over the surface of the water caught Link's eye, and he peered at it curiously.

"What?" said Tatl. "Have... ooh, yes, I think you're right..."

Floating over the gently-running water was a single orange faerie, almost impossible to spot over the moonlit ripples. It was, without a doubt, the missing stray faerie they'd been searching for. Link walked to the riverbank. The stray faerie was nowhere near the bridge. He'd have to-

"I know what you're thinking," said Tatl. "Don't. Deku scrubs can't swim. You'll float on water for the first few steps and then you'll soak it all up and drown." Pause. "That's a bad thing."

He nodded, struggling to absorb all the information. Soaking up water? Fighting with pirouettes? This was all so foreign.

He took a tentative step into the water, and was surprised to find his foot didn't sink further than a few inches in.

"What are you... oh, you're going to try walking across the water, are you?" She shook her head. "It's too far. Every moment you spent in contact with..." - she winced as suddenly his foot suddenly dropped and he landed hard on his behind - "...the water is going to... yeah, you see. Even if you tiptoed, you wouldn't get more than five steps in before that happened."

He scrambled out of the riverbank, watching in amazement as an inordinate amount of water dripped out of him. Within a few seconds he was all but dry again.

"I think," said Tatl, "that our best bet is for me to try to lure it over here."

She flew over to where the faerie was.

Link watched as Tatl motioned and gestured to the orange faerie. Worryingly, it didn't seem to respond to her. It looked just as zoned out as the ones in the fountain had been.

Tatl shot him a quick glance. "It's a total zombie. Just give me a moment. Maybe I can drag it back!"

As he looked across the surface of the water, the shadow of an idea formed in his mind. The stream wasn't _that_ wide... He stared, calculating distances.

His companion didn't seem to be making any headway. Resigned, he took a few steps back. This was going to require a run up.

Tatl was trying to push the motionless other faerie toward the river bank. It was about her weight, so this was proving next to impossible. She looked back over her shoulder and called: "Get comfortable. This is going to take a – are you _insane!?_"

Link dashed forward towards the edge of the river, arms and legs swinging wildly. With a squeaky battle cry, he jumped at the last minute, sailing over the open water, one pointed foot outstretched as he came into land...

He hit the water, feeling it soak into his wooden frame almost instantly, but he was already bouncing off its surface, his Deku buoyancy allowing him him to take another leap. How many steps had Tatl said it would take for him to sink? Five? That gave him another four... He bounced off the ground again. Make that three...

"Wingshreds," said Tatl, diving out of the way as Link sailed past, grabbing the comatose stray faerie as he went.

Two... It was far too late to turn around now. He should be able to reach the other side as long as long as he took big leaps. One... and he hit the ground with plenty to spare, skidding to a halt on one leg.

He let out an exhilarated laugh, waving the dazed faerie in his hands while Tatl zoomed over to him.

"Do you have a death wish or something, Deku boy?" She was clearly trying to sound angry but she looked nothing but impressed. "Not even a practice run..."

He stood there, catching his breath as a puddle formed at his feet.

She regarded the orange faerie with interest. "Still out for the count," she remarked. "Come on, we'd better get back to the Fountain..."

This time Link led the way.

**-oOo-**

**The Northern Park  
Clock Town**

As they entered the park, Link spied a lone figure walking through the trees. An old lady hobbled down an open path, a sack back slung over her shoulder.

"Aww," said Tatl. "Isn't that sweet? Even at-"

All of a sudden she stopped, putting a finger to her lips.

Another dark figure was creeping through the trees toward the little old lady, casting an ominous shadow across the ground.

"Who is that..." whispered Tatl, "...and what does he think he's-"

The shadowy figure suddenly lunged at the lady, knocking her over. A cloud of dust billowed over the two, and for a moment Link couldn't see anything...

"Move!" hissed Tatl. "Go!"

They ran towards the old lady, who was panicking, shouting, "Stop! Thief! That man stole my bag! Somebody stop him!"

Link looked around wildly and saw a figure dashing away from them, weaving through the trees. With a determined squeak he began to give chase.

"Give up!" Tatl called after him, stopping next to the old lady. "You'll never catch him on those legs!"

He ignored her: he had to at least try. He worked his little legs furiously, skittering across the open grass.

It quickly became apparent, though, that he was never going to catch the thief in time. He was losing ground, fast, and already the bag snatcher had slipped back between the buildings and was soon out of sight, vanishing in the darkness.

Link slowed down, feeling terribly useless. He should have been able to do something. If he'd been in his normal body he would have been able to stop the thief. It seemed that the curse was indirectly affecting other innocents...

He returned to Tatl, who was talking with the lady who had been robbed.

"I'll be all right, miss," said the lady, sitting on the ground cross-legged. "It was just a little bump..."

"The north gate is notorious for thieves," said Tatl, her hands glowing magically as she massaged the woman's neck. "You should be careful. Walking around at this time of the night is just asking to be mugged..."

"Mmm..." The old lady noticed Link. "You brave little Deku scrub. Thank you for trying to get back my luggage. It was a very noble..." (Tatl pulled a face.) "...thing for you to do."

A few minutes passed. Tatl finally hopped off the old lady's shoulder.

"That should do," the yellow faerie said. "My healing magic isn't great, but you should feel just fine in the morning."

"Many thanks," replied the other, standing up and dusting herself off. She smiled and waved at each of them in turn, then slowly hobbled off. "Such a shame..." she muttered as she went. "I thought we could finally sell bomb bags... maybe next time..."

Link watched her go, feeling uneasy.

Tatl read him like a book. "You couldn't have done anything, kid," she said. "It's not your fault." She forced a smile. "Hey, you know what? Once we get you back to normal, you can go hunting for that thief. But right now we've got other priorities, okay?"

She started towards the Great Faerie Fountain, then stopped when she saw he wasn't moving.

"Hey!" she snapped. "Sixty hours left! We don't have time to waste, so are you coming or not?"

He was coming, thought Link as he reluctantly stood. Of course he was coming.

* * *

**A/N:** Well, it was _going_ to be a short chapter... but then I couldn't find a good way of ending it... so it just became a normal-sized chapter that took several times as long to write. Hmm... perhaps there was a little _too _much detail on deku scrub weirdness? Guess what my favourite part was to write... :P

To be fair, that dog terrified me when I first ran into it playing the game.


	5. Majora's Mask and the Ocarina of Time

**INSOMNIA**_**  
**_**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

* * *

**The Great Faerie Fountain  
Clock Town**

They found the fountain just as they had left it: pretty as a picture and battle scarred beyond repair. The swarm of faeries who had communicated to Link before now appeared unconscious, just as he'd first found them.

"Well, now what?" said Tatl, then, without missing a beat, "You'd better give that faerie back."

Link reached under his cap and pulled out the faerie they'd retrieved from the laundry pool. Held safely in his fist, it too seemed asleep. He thought he could feel it breathing.

As he relaxed his hand the faerie's wings began to beat. Glowing brightly, it rose into the air and then shot into the centre of the fountain, where the other faeries began to stir. Within a few minutes they were swarming around again, circling into a sphere of dazzling orange light.

The sphere suddenly convulsed, ripples searing across its surface. A few seconds later it convulsed again. It reminded Link of a beating heart. The faeries' movements were becoming, if anything, even more chaotic, buzzing around agitatedly until the noise of their wings threatened to overwhelm him.

He looked to his side. Tatl had turned her back to the starstorm, hands over her face, shouting incomprehensibly over the din. He moved closer, and caught a few words something about eyes. Eyes? Where? Whose eyes? He looked back at the faerie constellation just in time to see the entire sphere collapse in on itself, and then-

An explosion of radiant light blinded him. Desperately clutching his eyes he found himself staggering backwards, hitting a wall, stopping. It was a dozen times worse than looking into the sun: he felt as if a huge hole had been burnt into his eyes that came out on the other side of his head. Everything was black.

The noise had stopped. He sat up against the wall, waiting for his vision to return.

"Didn't you cover your eyes?" said a little voice nearby. "I _warned_ you..."

Link swatted blindly in her direction.

The colour was starting to return. The water came into focus, vague blurry lines sharpening into dancing jets of water. Link turned to look at the central fountain. The swarm of orange faeries had disappeared. In their place, looking nearly as dazed as him, was unmistakeably the Great Faerie of Clock Town.

True to their name, Great Faeries looked like normal faeries – but bigger. Towering three or four times taller than a full-grown human man, and with a wingspan to rival that height, it was hard not to feel a sense of awe while watching a Great Faerie in her own domain. Yes, _her_ – for whatever reason he had never heard of a male one.

This Great Faerie rose slowly out of the central fountain, magic-laced water dripping down her naked form, revealing subtly inhuman details. Her limbs were too thin, too curved, as if her bones were made of elastic; like all faeries her fingers almost curved back in on her wrist. Her hair was translucent and shone with every colour of the rainbow, while her crystal-sharp eyes glowed with electric orange pupils. She rose up several metres above the fountain's surface, making it abundantly clear why the room was so big, and blinked, her eyes darting around the room in a way that said, _I'm alive?_. (Link was all too familiar with the feeling.)

Link was no stranger to this sort of encounter. He'd visited a lot of Great Faerie Fountains in his time – both in the travels that had brought him to Termina, and earlier still, during the war which had devastated his homeland and stripped him of any hope of a normal childhood. At the thought of Hyrule, Link felt simultaneous twinges of nausea and homesickness. On one hand he didn't want to think of the unspeakable things he'd seen and done there. That was part of the reason he'd left. On the other hand, there were friends back in Hyrule, people who he had left behind when he'd set out on this journey. And look how this had turned out. Instead of the happy ending he'd hoped for, here he was, in an unfamiliar body in an unfamiliar land, waiting for the world to end. This wasn't what he'd been hoping for when he said goodbye...

_He found her in the courtyard where they'd first met all those years ago. No – not years, months. He was the only person who'd had to bear the inexorable passage of time._

"_Link," she said. She was sitting on the steps next to the windows, running her hands through the palace gardener's carefully-tended flowers. Dressed in a simple lavender gown, she looked up as he approached. Her face was expressionless, a mask._

_He struggled to think of something to say, something to make this morning a memorable one. But nothing came. Almost sadly, he managed, "Morning."_

"_Yes, good morning..."_

_She folded her hands, unfolded them. She was restless; Link's battle instinct registered this even as his conscious mind struggled for the next words._

_His eyes went to the royal crest stitched into the centre of her gown. The Triforce. How much blood had been shed in the name of that symbol?_

"_I trust you've heard the news," she said, watching him closely. "The Gerudo armies have been subdued. The King of Thieves was defeated and captured."_

_She didn't have to add that they all had Link to thank. He had come back from a nightmarish future and convinced the King of Hyrule not to trust Ganondorf, thereby averting the events that had lead to the Seven Years War. To this day he still didn't understand how he had been able to alter the course of history. If there was one thing he had learnt during the War about time travel, it was that you couldn't simply change time._

_Once the King had declared war on the Gerudo tribe of the desert, Link had been given a hero's treatment, with all sorts of feasts and speeches in his honour, not to mention a permanent berth here in Hyrule Castle, where he'd become well-acquainted with the royal heir._

"_Ganondorf will be executed." Pause. "Maybe not this week, maybe not even for a few years, but it will happen. Such a dangerous person can hardly be held in a prison." She stared straight into his eyes. "How do you feel about that?"_

_Link had been expecting the question. He'd spent all of last night thinking about it._

"_It has to be done," he said, and left it at that. Normally he felt uncomfortable with the sound of his own voice, and today even more so. He knew where this was going._

"_Yes. I thought you might say that." Suddenly she became restless again, her eyes returning to the flowerbeds. "So your role is done, then, isn't it? This is what she sent – this is what my future self sent you back to do, right? Stop the war, give you your childhood back."_

_He nodded._

_Her next question caught him off guard. "You are already leaving this land of Hyrule, aren't you?"_

_Link gaped. "How did..."_

_The royal heir forced a little laugh. "It may only have been a short time, but I feel like I've known you forever. I don't know what horrors you had to face, or what sacrifices you had to make, but I can tell you need to leave, Link. I've seen how you look at things, normal things. You pass houses in the town and just by looking at your face I can tell which ones burned to the ground in your timeline. You can't grow up here in Hyrule, can you? It hurts too much."_

_The truth in her words stung him. He felt a tightness in his throat and tried to slow his breathing, forcing himself not to start crying. "Princess... there's someone I have to see. Someone who I parted ways with when I came here."_

_She nodded. "It's all right. I understand." She sighed. "My father will want to throw you a goodbye banquet. There'll be a lot of fanfare, a lot of dignitaries. I suspect he'll want to give you a medal or two. Knowing him, maybe a wagonload of gold too."_

"_I know," said Link._

_She stood up. "Which means you're leaving now, right?" Her little smile was the saddest thing in the world._

_He couldn't meet her eyes. He stared at his feet, nodding._

"_All right," she said, voice quivering slightly. "Well... I'll never forget the days we spent together, Link. And... and I believe in my heart that a day will come when I shall meet you again. But until that day comes..." She hesitated, indecision churning behind her eyes. "Please. Take this."_

_He looked up. In her outstretched hand was a little blue instrument: the ocarina that he had carried with him throughout the War. Without thinking, he reached across to take it. As he did, she clasped her other hand over his._

"_If something should happen to you," she whispered, "remember this song..."_

_As she released his hands she moved her hands into the air, pretending to play the ocarina with her fingers. He recognised the song she was miming._

"_The Song of Time?" he said. "What would-"_

_She silenced him with a finger to her lips. "You know what they're calling you in the streets, Link? No? They call you the 'Hero of Time'. The little boy who carried the weight of the future on his shoulders and pulled Hyrule back from the brink of collapse." She pointed at the instrument. "Like it or not, you always will be remembered as that. And the Goddess of Time herself is protecting you. With your lips on the ocarina, this song could move mountains."_

_He looked at the ocarina, cradled innocuously in his hands. "Thank you."_

_She smiled again and took a step towards him. "Wherever you go... you will always have friends back here. You should be happy with all you've done for Hyrule. Just... keep doing the right thing like you always do. Don't lose sight of who you are."_

"_And who is that? The Hero of Time?" he said resignedly._

"_No, Link," she said, taking another step towards him. Their eyes locked. "Being a hero comes second. First and foremost, you are-"_

"YOU!"

The room rumbled ominously and Link was jolted out of his memories as the Great Faerie turned to face them. There was fire in her eyes, literally.

"You have some nerve showing up here!" continued the Great Faerie, her hands curling into fists that crackled with light.

_What did I ever do to you?_, thought Link, scrambling backwards.

To his side, Tatl was rolling her eyes. "Hey, look, I already apologised for the food dye incid-"

"Not _that_," hissed the Great Faerie, motioning to the damaged walls of the fountain. "_That_."

The yellow faerie gaped. "That... had absolutely nothing to do with me..."

"A likely tale," retorted the other, raising an arm ready to fling the spell at them. "Your friend the Skull Kid arrives in my fountain with some powerful magic artefacts and _destroys_ me, and then you turn up wanting to make peace? Give me one good reason why I shouldn't feed you to the birds _right now_!"

"Hey! Hey! Calm down!" said Tatl. She whipped around and pointed at Link. "Hey, see the Deku kid here? He just needs your help, okay?"

The Great Faerie blinked. "Oh, hello. I didn't notice you there..."

"Just... put the fireball or whatever that is down," managed Tatl.

Obliging, the Great Faerie, put on a sweet smile and turned to Link. "My apologies, young one. It's been a little hectic around here lately." She narrowed her eyes at Tatl. "Now would you care to explain what is going on?"

Tatl raised her hands in a placating gesture. "Uh, absolutely no idea. I kind of got separated from Skull Kid sometime... yesterday?"

The Great Faerie arched an eyebrow. "Skull Kid and your brother turned up here about a week ago."

"A _week_!?"

"Let me guess... you were in the Underforest?"

"Maaaybeee..." said Tatl.

"You shouldn't have been," sighed the Great Faerie. "People have been known to lose years of their lives in there. Just a few weeks back a kid from the swamp went missing..." She seemed to remember Link. "Oh, yes, you... so pray tell, Tatl, how exactly did you come to know this Deku scrub?" She paused, frowned, sniffed the air. "Strange. Your aura isn't Deku at all. In fact... oh, _interesting_..."

Link shifted uncomfortably. The Great Faerie was looking at him in a way that creepily reminded him of the Gerudo thief Nabooru.

"Well, uh," said Tatl, "Tael and Skull Kid and me were..."

("And _I_," muttered the Great Faerie.)

"...were just hanging around, doing nothing much, and then, uh... yeah, then we met this kid."

The Great Faerie smirked. "Let me guess. You mugged him?"

Tatl winced. "You make it sound so _crude_."

"Go on."

"Uh, and then he followed us into the Underforest and Skull Kid used his magic mask on him... he's actually a human... and turned him into a little Deku boy. And then, well, Skull Kid was being mean and left me behind so I had to use this annoying little kid to get out."

Silence.

"And we were hoping you could turn him back to normal...?" finished Tatl.

The Great Faerie looked Link over. "Hmm... that's definitely no garden variety hex, is it? It might be a flesh binding... no, no, definitely a soul mask. Tatl, look at his aura. See that thing wrapped all over him? That's somebody else's soul."

There was _what_ wrapped around him? Link caught Tatl's eye.

She was looking at him with a faint air of disgust. "Ew... is that the missing kid?"

The Great Faerie shrugged. "It might be. Whoever it is is definitely long dead, though. See the decay there?"

Tatl squinted. "Hey, slow down. It's been ages since I last did anything more magical than a healing charm."

"And you were better at it than any other faerie in Termina," mused the Great Faerie. "You and your brother shouldn't have left the fountain. You would have been great."

"Capital 'g' great?" said Tatl wide-eyed, before snapping back to her usual dismissive self. "Yeah, well, magic spells and history lessons are boring, and you're the dullest person in the whole of Clock Town. No offence."

The Great Faerie laughed and continued to stare down Link. "Okay, I think I see the centre... stand still, child."

She made a gesture with her hand and suddenly Link was wracked with waves of agony that tore across his face. He might have been screaming; gravity seemed to lose all meaning and he wasn't sure whether he was standing or sitting or falling...

She released him and Link collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily. His hands went to his face. Still a Deku scrub.

"I'm sorry," said the Great Faerie softly. "The curse-mask is bonded to tightly to your face. The black magic that Skull Kid is using is too powerful for me to counteract, not this soon after reforming."

"Yeah?" said Tatl. "Well, how long will it take you to get your power back?"

"A few days at least..."

Tatl gritted her teeth. "Uh, the moon?"

"I'm aware," said the Great Faerie patiently. She returned her attention to Link. "It may be possible for you to remove the mask yourself..."

"How?" said Tatl instantly.

"When the Skull Kid shattered my body," said the Great Faerie, "I noticed he was carrying two very powerful magical objects with him. Neither of them are from Termina, and I'd be very interested to know how he got a hold of them, Tatl..."

"Fire away."

"The first one was a mask that-"

"We stole it from a travelling salesman a few months ago. Gave him a good scare, sent him packing." Tatl smiled fondly, remembering.

The Great Faerie shook her head disapprovingly. "The other one was an ocarina-"

"What's an ocarina?" said Tatl. "Some kind of pasta?"

Link squeaked, catching their attention. That was _his_ ocarina.

"Yes?" said the Great Faerie. "What is it?"

He tried to explain, and once again completely failed to make a single coherent word.

"Can't he speak?" She glanced at Tatl. "Is that part of the curse?"

"Nah," said Tatl, "he's just struggling with Deku harmonics. Can't you, uh, read his mind or something?"

The Great Faerie shrugged and looked at him. "Subvocalise. I mean, imagine you're saying the words aloud."

_It's my ocarina_, thought Link, trying to make the words louder in his head.

"Oh, it's your ocarina?" said the Great Faerie, surprised. "Well, then you probably know more about its powers than I do. Rest assured that it carries more than enough power to remove your curse. Now pay attention."

Link listened closely.

"You need to get back your ocarina first. Then return to the lower levels of the Clock Tower and listen to the sounds of the gears while holding the ocarina in your hand. You should be able to make out a melody in all the noise. That is the Song of Healing. Play it while visualising your human body." She spread her hands. "That's all you need to do. Once you play it the curse should dissipate within minutes, seconds even."

Link nodded.

Tatl didn't look so convinced. "You mean the little blue thing Skull Kid took from him? How are we supposed to get it back? Do we just walk up and... _ask _or something?"

The Great Faerie shook her head. "Do you know just how dangerous he is wearing that mask?"

"Uh... no?"

"That's Majora's Mask he's wearing," said the Great Faerie, looking at Tatl pointedly.

Tatl blinked. "Uh... should that mean something to me?"

"Dinsake," muttered the Great Faerie. "Well, if I'm going to have to explain, I might as well... hold still, young one..."

Link felt a slight tingling sensation in his head.

"Okay," said the Great Faerie. "So you don't remember me ever mentioning it to you, Tatl? Not even once?"

"Hey, I already said no, okay?" said Tatl loudly. "Wingshreds, some people..."

"_Watch your tongue_," hissed the Great Faerie. She looked at Link. "The mask that the Skull Kid wears is a very dangerous mask, full of all sorts of power. It's called Majora's Mask, and I never thought I'd see it touch Termina's soil.

"Legend has it that Majora's Mask was once used by a powerful ancient tribe in its hexing rituals. Shamans would wear the mask, never for more than a few seconds at a time, and cast the most horrible of curses upon their enemies and those who broke their taboos. You have both seen the mask. You know the feeling of dread that comes just from making eye contact. Such is its power.

"But the troubles caused by the mask were so great, the ancient ones, fearing such catastrophe, sealed the mask in shadow forever, preventing its misuse. But that tribe from legend has long since vanished, and so nobody really knows much about the exact nature of Majora's Mask.

"Some say that it is the soul of a dead magician. Others say it was created from the ashes of a thousand slaughtered newborns. Whatever the case, all the stories indicate that it has a mind of its own. It is powerful and it moves with no goal other than chaos.

"Nobody knows the extent of its power, much less what its weakness is. But if the Mask has come to Termina, then this is certain: left unchecked, everything will be consumed by chaos. The falling moon is no coincidence. Over the next few days, fear will grow. Then despair. And where there is despair, the Mask's power will only increase. And if the moon lands and destroys us all, then years later Majora's Mask will just find its way on the face of an unsuspecting traveller to the next land, more powerful and more destructive than before. And so the cycle will continue for thousands of years... until there is nothing left."

The Great Faerie closed her eyes sombrely. Link exhaled, only realising then that he had been holding his breath.

"Thanks, I feel a lot better now," muttered Tatl.

The Great Faerie ignored her and focused on Link. "While I was talking I granted you a modicum of magic power. You seem no stranger to magic spells, so I trust you will use it wisely. In your current form you may only be able to use it to shoot bubble blasts, but it may be enough for you to recover your ocarina..."

Link concentrated, sensing an extra something running through his veins. He recognised the feeling of magic; other Great Faeries before this one had taught him other spells of interest.

Tatl said, "Okay. Great. So where is Skull Kid now?"

The Great Faerie traced a glowing design in the air with her left hand. "The ocarina cast a powerful magical aura when I saw it a week ago. I'm going to search for the ocarina's aura... right... now..."

The shape in the air glowed brightly and then faded away. The Great Faerie peered intently into the space where it had been a moment ago.

A few seconds passed in silence.

"Tatl," she said in an odd voice. "Take a look at this."

Tatl groaned. "I told you, I'm not interested in becoming a-"

"Just look."

Tatl flew over to where the Great Faerie was. Link was treated to a very odd sight as the two faeries stared deep into a single point in mid-air, both of them looking highly perplexed.

"I don't understand," said the Great Faerie at length. "No two auras are quite the same, but... you see it, Tatl?"

"Yeah..." said Tatl, squinting. "Maybe this Magicka, um, Majula, um... you know, Skull Kid's mask is throwing us off the scent?"

"Impossible," replied the other. "It's a fundamental law of magic: you can mask an aura but you can't fake one..."

Link squeaked loudly, trying to elicit an explanation.

The Great Faerie looked at him helplessly. "The spell doesn't make any sense, and in my weakened state this is the best we've got."

"There's five identical ocarina auras," said Tatl. "According to this Skull Kid is somewhere deep in the mountains _and_ on top of the Clock Tower _and_ somewhere underground to the east plus a couple of other places, all at the same time... maybe you botched the spell?"

"We'd be dead, not confused," said the Great Faerie with a shake of her head. "Unless Skull Kid suddenly discovered how to transmute gold into auras, I can't explain this..."

"So this is a dead end?" said Tatl worriedly. "All this work and we all still die?"

The Great Faerie frowned. "Maybe the damage to my fountain is a problem."

"Ha, yeah, must have been a helluva fight you two had in here..." laughed Tatl.

The Great Faerie of Clock Town looked at Tatl stonily.

Tatl fell silent.

"Young one, I suggest you take the non-magical approach," said the Great Faerie to Link. "The man who lives in the observatory outside of clock town may know of the Skull Kid's whereabouts."

Link nodded.

Tatl nodded as well. "We'd better get going, I guess... getting outside of town is going to be a toughie..."

She flew past Link and down the tunnel that led outside, motioning for him to follow.

He followed, chancing one last look back at the Great Faerie.

"Be careful!" she called after him. "Do not underestimate the power of that mask, young one. And remember to listen to the melody under the Clock Tower!"

Link nodded and raised his hand in farewell, before turning to run off after Tatl.

"Forty-eight hours left," she said, spinning around in midair. "Let's move!"

* * *

**A/N:** By this point it should be fairly obvious that I'm not sticking exactly to the storyline of the game. Confusing time travel system aside, in this chapter alone I've already completely written out the Happy Mask Salesman. Who, to be honest, was kind of weird anyway. Very weird. Also, I moved the flashback scene here because it would look so cheesy if I wrote it where it appeared in the game.

Guess what the food dye incident was. (Your guess is as good as mine!) If you feel like saying something more substantial when you review, this was a dialogue-heavy chapter - maybe you could give your opinion on how natural, informative and/or readable all the talking was.

Anyway, the next chapter is definitely going to take more than a week... (due to a reason that begins with 'e', ends with 'ms' and is an anagram of 'exams')

EDIT: Nearly forgot! In response to 'fan of fanfiction' and anyone else who was wondering about sidequests:  
- the Romani ranch quest will definitely happen, though perhaps not in the order you'd expect  
- I'll try very hard to squeeze the Anju/Kafei quest in, although the timing may be a little fidgety


	6. Secret Society of Justice

**INSOMNIA**_**  
**_**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

* * *

**CYCLE 0: CLAUSTROPHOBIA  
DAWN of the SECOND DAY**

The morning sun slipped over the eastern wall, gently waking Clock Town. For a few brief minutes the sky was awash in the mysterious red and gold hues of daybreak. Then the sun rose further, and the heavens went blue. Wispy white clouds dotted the sky like ethereal spider webs. Further in the distance, darker ones were gathering, pushing inexorably towards the town walls. Rain clouds, no doubt. Today would not be a dry one.

But nobody was looking up. Those already awake dared not look up to find themselves staring into the face in the moon, still frozen in that dreadful scowl. _You are mortal_, its eyes whispered with a gaze that froze the blood, _everyone is_.

So they kept their heads down. Well-dressed men and women on their morning walks had their eyes fixed on the road. Shoppers and vendors stopped to chat for longer than usual, drowning out the fear and despair with gossip and small talk. Children playing catch made sure to toss the ball well below eye level.

In the twisting alleyways of Clock Town's west a throng of early risers were already busy looking busy, dashing around with crates of fruit 'n' veg, arms hefting bags packed with fancy linen undergarments and silk scarves, tradesmen bantering with each other from several doors away. In one such lane a woman was complaining loudly about the price of good shoes, to the bemusement of many faces in the crowd. A man with a mop of red hair sat alone by a sign reading 'Bank'. Every now and then a passer-by would shoot him a confused look. Buskers; a teenage human girl belting out strange, amelodious lyrics as her twin brother plucked at a lyre. Invisible at knee level, a faerie and a little Deku scrub navigated the crowd.

"'Scuse me, 'scuse me, midget coming through," chirped the faerie, much to the confusion of everyone above. "Come on, make way for the ugly little Deku... hey, watch where you're going!... 'scuse me..."

Looking thoroughly hassled, the Deku scrub followed her past the crowd and into a less crowded side lane, barely able to keep up. It wasn't exactly the first time the faerie had led him all the way around town without explanation, but that hardly made it any less annoying.

Sensing his mood, Tatl slowed down. "Hey, did you hear those buskers back there? You like?"

Their pace having turned to a leisurely stroll, Link gave himself some time to ponder the question. The music sounded completely off, as if the notes were being played at random without rhyme nor reason – but he liked it; he had no idea why. He expressed this to Tatl with a big nod and a slight shrug.

She laughed. "Bet you've never heard jazz outside of Termina, huh?" When he nodded in agreement she grinned. "If we survive the apocalypse, you should watch some of the bands playing in the Carnival of Time. They'll fry your puny brain."

They stopped next to what Link surmised was the western gate, identical in almost every way to the northern and eastern gates, aside from the blue coat of arms on the wall above. Even the soldier standing guard looked the same from what little of his face was visible.

"Stop right there, Deku scrub!" he said as they came close, raising a warning hand. "Are you alone? What happened to your parents?"

Tatl rolled her eyes. "Hey, calm down, we're not trying to leave or anything."

The soldier's jaw dropped slightly, but he recovered smoothly. "Ah... very well, then. Have a pleasant day."

Link shot Tatl a look. _What are we doing here?_

Tatl yawned, stretching her arms and reclining back as she hovered in place. "Well, the Great Faerie said to talk to the guy at the observatory, right? I figure if we're going to get past the guards at the gates we need an _adult_ with us..." - she pronounced the word like some kind of bug - "...so if we just hang around here, eventually someone's going to be heading that way. We tag along with them, get there, ask the observatorer about Skull Kid, and fix this whole mess. It's not a great plan, but it's the best we've got, Deku boy."

He had to agree. Since the town guard was still adamant about following the rules even during this crisis, they didn't really have any option but to play along with city regulations.

"You heading to the observatory?"

Link turned; the soldier standing at the gate was speaking to them.

Tatl glared. "If you were listening to us, which you obviously were, then you wouldn't need to ask."

The guard scowled. "A real people person, aren't you?"

"Oh, sorry," said Tatl, forcing a big smile, "I meant, yes sir, we're going to the observatory sir, which you _already knew _because I _just said so_!"

Link couldn't help but notice the guard's grip tightening around his spear.

"Just trying to offer some friendly advice, ma'am..."

"What would _you_ know about having friends?" retorted Tatl. "I bet-"

Link squeaked loudly, cutting her short. She shot him a _what?_ look, giving the soldier plenty of time to take advantage of the silence.

"Hey," the guard said, straightening his helmet. "You're wasting your time; nobody ever goes to the observatory."

Tatl rolled her eyes. "Yeah, thanks for the encouragement, creep. We're going to wait around here anyway."

"Yes, well-"

"Well _what_?"

"The observatory," said the guard, pointing, "is to the _east_ of town. You-" He pointed at Tatl, enunciating very slowly, "are at the _west_ gate. Getting. The. Picture?"

The faerie's opened and closed her mouth wordlessly. Link stifled a laugh.

"Oh yeah?" Tatl said, crossing her arms, and looking the guard in the eyes. "Well, for your information, I was totally aware of that."

She and the soldier stared each other down for a few long seconds.

The guard blinked and looked away. "Excuse me, I have a real job..." He turned to smile curtly at an approaching Zora couple. "Good morning! Are you two returning to the ocean? It's dangerous out there, so be careful..."

Tatl humphed and turned away, beckoning for Link to follow. "Come on," she grumbled, "let's go to the east gate."

She zoomed off due east, setting a painful pace that Link struggled to keep up with. Every now and then she glanced back at him and waved him forward with some annoyance, neither in any mood to waste words nor to slow down.

He yelped as a bulky full-grown Goron cut straight in front of him, nearly sending him bouncing right off.

"What's with the funny hat, Deku?" piped up a little voice nearby.

Link stopped and looked around, instinctively angling his head up, but the speaker turned out to be a little boy who looked about seven. He was wearing a bright blue headscarf and a white shirt with a strange symbol drawn on the breast. In the split second it took for Link to register all this the boy had already whipped out a little yellow notebook and pencil.

"Did you come to town to play? I bet nobody will play with you, right! Sheesh, grown-ups..." He scribbled the words _green kap deku_ onto an empty page. "Do you have any problems, need any help, or are you lost, or maybe you don't have enough money, or you want somewhere to stay, or something?"

When no snappy response came, Link realised that Tatl hadn't seen her stop. He wheeled around, trying to spot her, but she had vanished into the hubbub. He felt a sinking feeling in his gut and did his best to fight the nausea.

As he did, a little voice in the back of his head started to whisper: _of course she left you she was only using you to get to her friends anyway what were you expecting another Navi you will die here far far away from home_... He knew the voice. It belonged to a lonely little boy named Link who he had left for dead in the depths of the Deku Tree an eternity ago.

"Hmm?"

Link looked up. The blue-headscarf boy was looking at him expectantly. He sighed. At least he'd found another friendly face amidst the madness of Clock Town. He shrugged and nodded.

The blue-headscarf boy smiled and raised a hand. "Great! You've come to just the right people for help!"

It took a moment to realise he wanted a high five. Link gladly obliged.

"Yeah, that's the spirit, Deku!" said the kid. "You can always tell the Bombers about your problems, got it? Yeah?"

The _what?_

"That's right, the Bombers!" said the boy, taking his eye-widening as a sign of approval. "The Bombers gang are a Secret Society of Justice. But it's a secret, huh? Okay? That's important. You absolutely can't tell any grown ups about this."

Drawing plenty of arched eyebrows from the adults within earshot, he started off in a different direction to the one Tatl had been taking, waving for the Deku scrub to follow. Trying to make sense of what he was hearing, Link scurried after him.

"So, how can we help?" said the secret Bomber, flashing him a smile. His pencil was still poised right above the page as it had been for the past minute.

Uh oh... did he expect him to talk? Link had been in this body for over twenty-four hours and he still hadn't managed more with his new voice than a few yelps. He squeaked uncomfortably.

The boy's face fell. "Oh... I'm sorry, I don't speak Deku. I hadn't thought of that..."

Link exhaled. For better or worse... at least he wouldn't need to waste time explaining about the curse.

"It's okay," said the Bomber boy, "just follow me. Someone'll know what you want."

With some relief, Link noticed that the boy's walking pace was the same as his Deku body's. For the first time since the curse he found himself... strolling. Arms swinging, breathing relaxed, the whole deal. It was a really good feeling.

"Psst... wanna know more about the Bombers?," said the boy loudly. Taking Link's silence for an answer, he went on, dropping his voice dramatically. "Okay, here we go. There has always been injustice in the world. So ever since Clock Town was built there was the Bombers. Whenever life is unfair to someone, we've always been there, _hiding in the shadows_..." - he dropped to a crouch, eyes darting shadily from side to side - "ready to help them out.

"And there's always someone who needs help. Why, just the other day we tracked down a whole litter of missing kittens for a nice lady. And then before that we caught the thief who was robbing the town stables. I think a lot of people were pretty happy when they found him all tied up in the town square the next morning. Yeah!" He pumped a fist in the air. "Bombers Secret Society of Justice forever!"

Link smiled. This secret society idea didn't sound half bad – a little on the absurd side, like something out of a pantomime or a bedtime story, but then again what would _he _know about having a normal childhood? Maybe human children like Link were _supposed _to do that. Besides, he'd never had any complaints helping a stranger in need.

His train of thought was starting to wander to the idea of a Hylian secret justice society when the boy with the blue-headscarf suddenly dashed ahead, waving his arms. Waving back further down the street was another boy around the same age, with the same type of headscarf and shirt – presumably another Bomber.

The new one piped up, speaking with a slight lisp. "Hey! What's up?"

"Not much..." The boy who'd brought Link here reached out with an open palm and the two Bombers engaged in a lightning fast move that might have been a secret handshake or an exotic ethnic dance. He pointed at Link delightedly. "Look here, I found a Deku!"

"Ooh!" exclaimed the second one, nodding in approval. "That's a funny hat. What does he need helping with, huh?"

"Dunno. Do you know how to speak Deku?"

"Nope, sorry. Maybe... oh, wait, did you hear the news?"

He beckoned and the two huddled together, whispering conspiratorially, frequently stopping to shoot suspicious glares at passers-by. They looked almost identical, but now with their backs half-turned to him Link noticed something he hadn't before: there were large hand-drawn numbers on the other side of their shirts. The one Link had first met had a big black '2'; the other, the number '4'.

After a few minutes they broke away from their huddle and turned back to face him.

"Hey, Deku, sorry we don't know what you're squeaking about," apologised Bomber number four.

"Wait, uh, do you know how to write?" said the other. "'Cuz we know how to read."

Link nodded.

"Great! Here..."

They led him to a patch of dirt. One of them picked up a stick and tossed it to him.

"Tell us whatcha need!"

Taking a moment to consider, Link gripped the stick firmly and started scratching in the dirt. The earth was quite hard so it took some time, but eventually his markings began to resemble the words _go to observatory?_.

The Bombers exchanged looks.

"The observatory, huh?" said number two cautiously. "Oh, I get it, the guards won't let you past the gates either, huh?"

"Yeah, we know the place," said number four. "The old astronomer is the only adult who'll-"

"Shh!"

"What?"

"Are we allowed to tell him that?"

"Hey, I don't see why not!"

"Jim wouldn't be too happy if we told all our secrets to a scrub, would he?"

"I don't think it's that big of a deal."

"Not a big deal? Where our _hideout_ is is a very big deal! It's supposed to be a secret..."

Number four shrugged. "Then let's go ask Jim."

"He's probably gonna shout at us."

"Oh well. Gotta give it a shot for the Deku, yeah?"

"Guess so, huh."

Link looked between the two of them uncertainly. Who was Jim?

**-oOo-**

**The Northern Park  
Clock Town**

Jim turned out to be the shady kid in the red cap who had been doing target practice in the park the evening before. He looked about ten (Link's own age), certainly a lot taller than the Bombers he'd met or the average Deku scrub. Jim was still practising his blowgun on the same balloon from the night before, which hovered elusively out of range. As Link and the two Bomber boys walked over to him, he glanced at them out of the corner of his eye and nodded slowly before turning his attention back to his aim.

"Hey, Jim!" said Bomber number four, adding in a whisper to Link, "Just keep quiet, okay?"

Jim shot another pellet from his blowgun. It arced up into the air, peaking a few tantalising feet away from the balloon, before dropping back into the grass quietly. He shook his head, annoyed.

"Who's the little shrimp?" he growled out of the corner of his mouth, already preparing another shot. His ammunition appeared to be some sort of coloured candy.

"I found this Deku scrub!" said Bomber number two animatedly. "We have to get him to the observatory!"

"No scrubs," said Jim flatly. He squinted and let loose another projectile. Link watched with some fascination, noting the way the boy's diaphragm contracted abruptly at the moment of launch. The pellet fell short of the balloon again.

"But we promised him!" said number four. "It's already in our notebooks and everything!"

"Is it," replied Jim with little interest. He bent down towards a pile of pellets just long enough to reveal a big number '1' sewn crookedly into his back. "Well, maybe the Bombers' notebooks aren't the most important thing right now."

The younger Bombers looked confused. "Whaddya mean?"

Jim pointed straight up at the sky. "Take a wild guess." He took aim again.

Although the moon made a frightening impression, number four still looked troubled. "Yeah, well... well what about this poor Deku here? Are we just gonna make him wait?"

Number two piped up. "Yeah, is he gonna have to wait?"

"_Shush!_" snapped Jim, whipping around to face them. They whimpered and took a few steps back. "You guys aren't in charge, are you? I'm the oldest, I'm the one makin' the decisions right now! Yeah, we try to help as many people as we can, but what's more important right now? Helping one single lone Deku scrub, or helping the whole world? Huh?"

The pair of Bomber boys stared solemnly at their feet.

"Well?"

One of them muttered, "World..."

"That's right," said Jim, shooting a glare at Link. "The moon's falling, the town guard is still asking all sorts of nosy questions about K- Keaton boy, our newest member has gone completely rogue, and you're worried about a _Deku scrub_? Have you even _heard _about Sakon?"

The Bombers blinked. "He's left town, hasn't he?"

Jim laughed humourlessly. "Huh. That's one way of putting it..." He grimaced. "It's kinda sick. He wasn't the nicest person ever, but... look, all I'm trying to say is, things are getting really nasty in Clock Town right now. I don't know where this moon came from or what it means, but a lot of bad things have been happening around here and I bet it's all related. So how about we wait until we take care of that ugly hunk of rock in the sky, and then we can start discussing – wait, did you say the observatory?" He looked at the two younger children incredulously. "You want to take him to the _observatory_? You might as well just tell him where our hideout is while you're at it!"

"Toldya," whispered number two.

Jim sighed and shifted his attention back to the balloon. "Look, the entire point of having a secret passage to the observatory is to keep it _secret_. As opposed to spillin' everything out to just any person in the street. You know how important it is to keep gang Bomber secrets... _right_?"

"Right, Jim," replied the Bombers in unison.

The leader of the Bombers blew another pellet distractedly, which didn't even make it halfway up. He grimaced. "Now, if you two want to help mister Deku there, sneak him out of the town gates or something, you go ahead, but you're not telling him the secret code, and you're definitely not telling him where the secret passage is, okay?"

"Yes, Jim..."

"Besides, shouldn't you guys be working on a distraction for... the, uh, thing tonight?"

"The secret thing?"

"Yes, _duh_," groaned Jim, "the secret thing." He kept shooting.

After a half a minute passed in silence it became clear that the conversation was over.

The younger Bombers looked at Link with identically apologetic faces.

Number four spoke first."Sorry, Deku, but Jim says we can't tell you about the hideout entrance in the east of town."

"Yeah, that's right," said number two, adding in a whisper: "He's been pretty grumpy ever since the moon started falling. Can't blame him. Anyway, we'll get you out the town gates somehow."

Number four rubbed his chin. "Hey, I've got a great idea! Dekus can use stilts, right? Cuz' I still have the big coat we- ah! Bees!" He ducked, waving his arms frantically in a swatting motion.

His friend looked around in panic. "Bees? Where? Oh no, I see it! Help, Jim! Bees! Bees!"

Terrified, the two Bombers dove to the ground and started rolling around with shouts and squeals that could be heard from the other side of the park. For a brief second Link found himself making eye contact with Jim, who was laughing like mad.

"Oh, come on, you two!" he choked between peals of laughter. "There aren't any _bees_ left in Clock Town! That's either a butterfly or a faerie..." - he squinted - "aha, the Skull Kid groupies. Well, half of 'em. Long time no see, Tael."

"My hair!" yelped one of the Bombers, as a very disgruntled yellow faerie dragged it back and forth so hard she very nearly ripped his scalp off.

"Tael is a _boy's _name. Do I look like a _boy _to you, Jim?" she growled.

Jim shrugged. "My mistake. Any reason you're attacking my gang? Or did you just _feel _like it?"

"Hey, eye for an eye," replied the faerie, twisting a Bomber's ear (he squealed and flailed wildly). "_They _made off with _my _Deku scrub, so I'm just... teaching them a lesson." She grinned manically.

One of the Bombers piped up. "We didn't know... owowow..."

Jim raised his blowgun. "That's nice and all, but are you going to let go of my Bombers or am I gonna have to make you?"

"Oh, yeah?" she said, poking her tongue out. "What are you going to do, shoot- _wingshreds_!" A brightly-coloured candy pellet the side of her fists went flying past her. She let go of the Bomber boy, raising her hands and backing away. "Sheesh, Jim, your aim's improved..."

Jim grinned. "Just for you, Tatl, just for you." He beckoned to the younger Bombers, who scrambled to their feet and ran around behind him,trying to shield themselves.

"Huh." Unable to think of a comeback, Tatl spun around to berate Link. "You stupid worthless little Deku scrub! What were you _thinking_ running off like that? You idiot! Do you think you know your way around town the slightest bit? You could have been lost all day! What if someone tried to chop you up and use you as firewood, huh? What if you got attacked by another puppy and couldn't defend yourself? I was _terrified_!"

Jim snickered.

"Terrified for your sake," she clarified, shooting a look at the Bombers. "Why are you hanging around these... these pond scum, anyway?"

"Are you calling us names?" said Bomber number two, pointing a trembling finger at her.

"Go ahead and take the scrub," said Jim. "And while you're at it, Tatl, you tell that Skull Kid he's outta here! He's been acting like a real jerk lately. I should never have let him join."

"As a matter of fact," said Tatl, "Skull Kid is... missing right now. You wouldn't happen to have seen...?"

Jim stared at her in surprise, then chuckled loudly.

"Seriously?" he said. "He ditched you? Wow, talk about just desserts..."

"Oh, shut up," said Tatl, making a funny sign with her hand. "We're going now, Deku boy, so stick _close _this time, we're going straight... wait a minute..."

She dragged Link back over to where Jim and the Bombers were standing. The Bombers' hands went protectively to their heads.

"What?" said Jim, pointedly raising his blowgun. "Didn't I tell you to scram?"

"I totally forgot," said Tatl, softening her voice, fluttering her eyelashes and laying on the charm in thick gooey layers. "You Bombers have your secret hideout in the observatory, don't you? And you've got a secret passage going there, haven't you?"

"How did she know?" whispered one of the littler Bombers.

"Dunno," the other whispered back. "It's a secret nobody knows. She must have been spying on us."

Tatl flashed Jim her best smile. "Say, why don't you do a little favour to a poor little girl and her cute little Deku friend, and give us this week's password?"

Jim winced. "Just how much did that Skull Kid tell you?"

"Uh... I guess... everything?"

"And stop doing that thing with your eyes!"

Tatl pouted. "Hmph, fine. Are you going to give us the password or not?"

"Um, _not_." said Jim. "Now _scram_." And with that he turned resolutely back to the problem of the purple balloon, while his little seven-year-old cronies _ooh_ed and _aah_ed at all his near misses.

As they walked off, Tatl hissed to Link, "He's never this snappy. What did you _say _to him? Ugh, you _always _just have to mess things up... And why did you run off like that? Did you even _think_ about me for a second there, you selfish twerp? Ooh, you stupid... thing..."

She muttered grumpily to herself as they walked. Not being in a position to argue or give his side of the story, Link simply followed her down a dirt track that didn't look as if it led anywhere in particular. He noticed Tatl was moving a lot slower than before, letting him amble on at a comfortable pace. Every few seconds she would turn to look at him as if expecting him to have disappeared again.

Barely half a minute later she waved him to a stop. Her face was devoid of its usual vibrancy, and the moment they made eye contact her eyes dropped to the ground.

"Deku boy..." she said, shifting restlessly. "Please don't... I mean, if something happened to you... look, don't you ever run off like that again. Promise?"

There was a pleading note in her eyes. Link nodded.

She exhaled slowly. "Good, good... Now the question is, what do we do next? I mean, since the Bombers are being such annoy– hey... you remember how the Great Faerie gave you some of her magic power?"

Link nodded – he remembered that, along with the advice that in his Deku form that magic was useless for anything but blowing bubbles.

"Yeah, well, how about you try blowing a bubble at Jim's balloon?"

He blinked. _Why...?_

Tatl grinned. "To pop it, of course. He totally deserves it. Come on, it'll be kinda cool. I actually have this with me..." She reached behind her back and brandished around the pointy half of a sewing needle like a miniature sword. "But I think it would be funnier if you did it yourself."

Link looked at her uncertainly. This sounded suspiciously like a childish prank.

"Yeah, it's a bit of a kids' prank," said Tatl in that unnerving just-like-mind-reading way, "but hey, why not? I mean, they _did_ just kidnap you and drag you halfway across town..."

That wasn't exactly how he'd have described it, but it looked like Tatl had already made her mind up. Link started focusing on the magic power he'd been given.

The Great Faeries from his homeland had taught him a variety of magic spells; charms to shield himself from harm, enchantments that could whisk him out of harm's way, not to mention the odd fireball or artificially-enhanced sword technique. He was long out of practice, but he did remember the bare basics of channelling magic power: concentrate on the faint buzzing in your veins, focus; use your mind to direct it through your body, focus; push it all into a single point, focus, focus.

Focus. As he repeated that mantra to himself, he felt a tingling around his... nose? Snout? Staring at the end of that long appendage, he could see the outline of a bubble begin to form – and then he choked and coughed, spitting out the bubble where it floated away onto the sharp blades of the grass, resting for a few seconds before popping loudly.

"Yeah, you still have to breathe through that," Tatl said. "Take a breath first next time. Now hurry up before they see what you're doing!"

Shooting her an annoyed look, Link focused again, making sure to take a huge gulp of air first. Not wanting to think about how much magic he was wasting, he formed another bubble, looked up, and directed his nose towards the purple balloon which hovered over the trees. He blew hard, letting it fly away.

Buffeted by gentle breezes, the shiny round projectile flew haphazardly through the air, tracing a rough spirally path towards the balloon...

Link was surprised by how loudly and violently it exploded. He jumped; the Bombers jumped; pieces of balloon went flying in every direction, distant cats and dogs started yowling and whining, and for a split second he could have sworn that the branches of the nearest tree shifted from the shock wave.

"Nice," said Tatl, grinning with delight as Jim and the Bombers looked around in confusion. "Let's see a non-magic bubble do that."

Either that balloon had been incredibly flimsy, or the magic in the bubble had made it incredibly volatile. Either way, Link suddenly felt a little regretful for having used up such a big part of that magic power. What if he needed it later?

"Hey!" shouted Jim in their direction. He sounded none too happy. "Was that you?"

"Let's goooo..." sang Tatl, taking off.

Link didn't need any further encouragement, and soon they were running across the grass and through the trees, drawing plenty of looks from the few other people in the park at this time of day, the war-cries of the Bombers not far behind.

"You two are gonna pay for that!" Jim shouted, waving an angry fist.

But if there was any malice in the chase to begin with, it faded fast, replaced with yells of excitement and exhilaration. And why not?, thought Link. After all, it _was_ all just one big game, wasn't it? It had been an eternity since he had last run for the sake of running, definitely before he'd left the forest he'd once called home. He had forgotten what it was like not to have a care in the world, even if only for a few precious minutes. And in that blissful state of exhilaration, the thought flashed briefly through his mind that perhaps being here in this doomed world wasn't such a bad thing after all. Silver linings took the strangest of shapes.

So a few minutes later when Link found himself slowing to a crawl with fatigue and turned around to see the Bombers collapsed on the ground in exhaustion, he started laughing in that hollow wooden voice, even ignoring Tatl when she collapsed on top of his head and offered a bemused "Oh, shut up..."

They had come to rest in a treeless hilly area flush up against the town walls, where the morning sun burned down upon the shadeless grass.

Jim staggered over to where Link and Tatl sat. "Hey, which one of you just popped that up there?" When Link half-raised his hand, Jim gave him a friendly shove. "That was mine, stupid! Grrr..." He sighed. "Not bad for a Deku Scrub, though..."

"Hey, keep it down..." yawned Tatl, gripping tightly onto Link's hat. "I didn't get a wink of sleep last night, you know..."

"Too bad," said Jim. He looked at Link thoughtfully. "And you're a pretty fast runner, too, aren't you?"

Link nodded, unsure where this was going.

The leader of the Bombers seemed deep in thought. "You know what, Deku? I don't know why you want to go the observatory so bad..."

"...find Skull Kid..." muttered Tatl with her eyes closed.

"...but maybe we can come to some sort of agreement." Jim rubbed his chin, smiling. "Got it. We Bombers have a hideout that leads to the observatory outside town. You'll need a code to get in. Maybe I'll tell you what it is... but you're gonna have to pass a little test first. Meet me where we first talked at eleven 'o' clock tonight." He stood up unsteadily.

"Why so late at night?" said Tatl, sitting up abruptly. "Why not do whatever it is now?"

Jim raised his eyebrows but didn't answer. He whistled shrilly and his fellow Bombers sprang to their feet, looking a little dazed. The three of them marched off.

Once they were out of sight, Tatl slumped back down onto the top of Link's head.

"Well, looks like you have a playdate for tonight, Deku boy," she said. "That's good. We don't have to waste all day trying to sneak out of town..."

He nodded slightly, careful not to let her roll off.

"I'm exhausted," yawned Tatl. "Hey, don't wake me 'til sundown..."

They lay there in silence for a few minutes, before she startled him by speaking suddenly.

"Ow!" she said. Her voice became grave. "Oh, wingshreds... I swear the sun was just out."

_What?_, thought Link, and then he felt a drop of water land on his face.

"Wingshreds, wingshreds," said Tatl, sitting up fast. "Quick, let's get under cover before..."

But then it was raining.

And then it started pouring.

* * *

**A/N:** Good ol' Bombers. The whole secret society thing was always a bit Enid Blyton -shudder- but you can never really go wrong with a bunch of kids running amok. They're very much limited to Clock Town, but I promise you'll see them at least a couple more times this cycle... Also: the bubbles never really made sense to me, but here they are, in all their totally-critical-to-the-plot glory.

After all the exposition and drama of the first day, the second day is just going to fly...

Review or Tatl gets it! (That's right, I'm banking on your attachment to a fictional character... bite me.)


	7. Rain

**INSOMNIA**_**  
**_**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

* * *

"You know what I hate about rain?" said Tatl.

They dashed out from under the tree and were instantly soaked. An endless torrent of water gushed down from the heavens, cascading from rooftop to balcony to ground. Link's feet splashed through the ground, spraying his face with mud, his faerie companion giving him a wide berth as they both made a beeline towards a covered archway at the edge of the park. They skidded to a messy halt as they got there: it wasn't much drier here thanks to the raindrops splashing off the ground next to them, but at least there was nothing coming from above.

Without warning Tatl dropped into a perch on Link's snout, digging in hard with her feet.

"Wingshreds," she said, casually running a hand through her (thoroughly waterlogged) hair. "Anyway. The problem with rain is that it's wet." She started wringing out her hair, sending a thin trail of water down Link's nose. "Cold, too. But wet. I _hate _being wet. You ever tried flying while your wings were soaked with water? No? Didn't think so. Urgh."

The sudden downpour was the first rain Link had encountered since he'd been cursed. Getting this wet was actually a very pleasant sensation in this body – no doubt related to being made of wood. Every drop of water sent a tingling sensation through his body, making him feel more cheerful and alert. Even the mud felt good against his bare feet. He really had turned into a plant.

Having spent all but a day of his life as a flesh-and-bones human, it had never occurred to him before that other races might see rain as something other than a messy nuisance. Link now found himself wondering what other everyday situations might seem entirely different in his new form.

"Oh, great," said Tatl unhappily, peering over her shoulders, "I think I just put on a few ounces... close your eyes..."

Before even finishing the last word she had turned her back to him, balancing carefully on his nose. With a deep breath and clenched fists, Tatl's wings buzzed with incredible speed like a dragonfly high on sugar, spraying Link in the face with more water than he had thought it possible for a faerie to soak up.

"_Much_ better," she said, flicking a drop of water from her chest. "I'm still cold, though. Want to head inside?"

Link shook his head. For once he was wringing a little enjoyment out of this Deku body.

Tatl's eyebrows arched. "Very funny. I think there's an inn not far from here. It's just a couple of blocks down from the Mayor's office, you remember going there?" She looked out from under the archway and grimaced. The rain was sloshing down on either side of them, and it was clear that even the shortest of dashes was going to result in extreme soaking. "But we're going to drown out there..."

Link shrugged. By 'we' she clearly meant 'I', and Tatl's personal comfort was not his number one priority right now. He stuck a hand out into the rain, marvelling at the touch of the icy cold droplets.

Sensing his disinterest, Tatl's eyes narrowed. "Fine. Be that way. Ignore a poor little girl's feelings."

He didn't deign to respond, and so she sat there on his nose, staring him down.

She didn't blink for five whole minutes, and for a few seconds he thought she might have fallen asleep or died with her eyes open. When she did blink and her eyelids fluttered up she had undergone one of those downright creepy instant mood changes. She swatted him playfully and motioned upwards.

"Hey, nice hat you've got there."

**-oOo-**

**The Eastern Thoroughfare  
Clock Town**

And so Link found himself wandering through the wet, windy streets of Castle Town with a faerie in his cap. Sitting under there, nice and comfortable (and, she claimed, dry), she offered occasional directions through East Clock Town. She flat-out refused to stick her head out in the cold to check they were going the right way, so those directions were sketchy at best.

That said, this was one part of town where directions were practically unnecessary. There was a very wide road which Link had already been up and down several times the day before, which wound around municipal buildings and upmarket shops and restaurants, sloped up and down and occasionally even broke into staircases, and which had nearly no side streets to speak of. Navigating this area was mostly a matter of following the brick road until one reached one's destination.

(Oh, and it was wet, and he was enjoying it, and she was not. All was well.)

"Okay," said Tatl's muffled voice, "we should have just passed the Mayor's office, right? So- you clumsy oaf! Don't nod so _violently_!"

If a Deku scrub qualified as a 'clumsy oaf' then Link couldn't imagine how she'd ever gotten along with the four foot high Skull Kid. He smirked, trying to imagine Tatl holding a conversation with a Goron.

"Did you just laugh?" said Tatl suspiciously. "I heard you laugh."

He shook his head, and after an accusing pause she went on.

"Okay, follow the road – oh, did you turn left? I felt a left turn – so now I think there's a tailor and a jeweller and a hairdresser all in a row. And there's a wall covered with Indigo-Go posters, right?"

Link had no idea what an Indigo-Go was, but there was indeed a wall covered with many different ads for them, all of them featuring Zoras: Zoras posing on a mountaintop, Zoras wading in boiling water, a Zora woman sitting in a giant clam, two Zora men slapping each other with dead fish. The fish people had always been a mystery to him, inscrutable even, but these posters made absolutely no sense. If Link had to guess, he might have ventured that the ads were for a comedy troupe.

A few buildings later and the eastern gate swam into view. Link slowed down to tackle a set of descending steps.

"Okay, nearly there," Tatl said, yawning and stretching. "Wow, it's pretty comfy here. You'd like it. Um, the milk bar should be to the left – be _careful_!"

This last word came as Link swung his head to look to his left. He recognised this building from yesterday, the one which had more layers of graffiti than rings in a tree trunk. A tiny brass on the door read '_Latte_: Members Only, ID required', while a painted-on cow's face winked at him. It didn't take a genius to work out what 'milk bar' meant.

"Are we there?" Tatl poked her head outside Link's cap for a split second, withdrew, and smacked him on the head. "Idiot! We're not going in _there_, you have to be an adult _and _pay a wagonload of gold just to get through the door! I was _going_ to tell you that there's an inn to your _right_, if you'd just listen for a second! Sheesh..."

Link walked across to a homely building that reminded him of a cottage with its irregular brickwork and lovingly-thatched roof (which the rain slid from like ice), signposted 'Stockpot Inn'. He tried the doorknob. It was locked.

"If you tell me it's locked I swear I will burn you to bits," said Tatl after a moment's pause.

As if he could have told her anything. He squeaked and waited for her to get the picture.

"Oh, come _on_," said Tatl. "Why would they lock up in the middle of the day? It's not like it's flooding or anything."

Link and his completely submerged feet begged to differ. The streets were all but empty, with the occasional person hurrying frantically by with a coat thrown over his head or a umbrella gripped in her hand.

"Well," said Tatl slowly, "how about we try somewhere else?"

**-oOo-**

So began a long trek through Clock Town, trying every single shop and cafe in sight. Inevitably at every building they were either locked out or ushered outside very quickly once somebody noticed Link and Tatl dripping all over the carpet.

The bomb shop to the west of town was open but already packed full of people trying to escape the wet.

At the Mayor's office, the receptionist recognised them from the day before, exchanged a few loud words with Tatl, and had them kicked out by the guards all in the space of half a minute.

A little boy in a yellow headscarf stood in front of a brick wall in the middle of nowhere, eyeing them uncertainly and loudly declaring that he was just minding his own business, he certainly wasn't guarding a secret passage or anything, and would they please shove off before he called the Bombers on them?

When the carpenters still working in the town square jokingly offered to let them take cover under the festival tower (which was still very incomplete and didn't block the rain in the slightest), Tatl groaned and told Link that this was all a huge waste of time and its was all his fault.

Her mood probably wasn't helped by the fact that even the thick lining of his cap was now soaking through. Tatl was now thoroughly soggy, but still refused to leave the hat on the grounds that it was much worse outside, her wings would soak up too much water and she would drop to the ground on the stone. Link would have liked to retort that none of the faeries he'd ever known had been immobilised by rain. He stared up at the festival tower and wondered how the carpenters would possibly have it done by tomorrow night.

A tiny flash of movement caught his eye. A man in white clothes with a big red hat jogged through the flooded square, ripples forming in time to his footsteps. A bright crimson backpack stuffed with envelopes suggested he was a postal worker. He was moving fast, even in the thick water, and as he came close Link could hear him muttering: "No time... no time..."

"Was that the postman I heard?" said Tatl. "He's crazy to be out right now... Ooh! Is he still wearing sandals?"

To Link's amazement, she was right: the postman was running through the water with his feet entirely exposed.

Tatl laughed. "He's gonna be scared of shoes for the rest of his life. And mice. Shoes and mice. Tael and I spent weeks preparing..." She paused, realising that Link would have no idea what she was talking about. "Whatever. Long story. Have we tried the laundry pool yet?"

The laundry pool was only a very short walk away, so they started in that direction. Squashed between a line of buildings and the town walls, they were actually sheltered from the rain above for a short distance, but that didn't matter with the mist spraying down from the town walls and the undertow threatening to drag them back to where they'd started.

When they arrived, Tatl reluctantly made her way out of his hat. "It's too damp," she explained, stretching her wings. She hastened to add, "But I'm not flying in this weather. No way." She dropped back onto his nose and proceeded to pull faces at him.

The running stream that had looked so tranquil the previous night was now turbulent and troubled, water trickling into it faster than it could carry out of town. They were quite alone out here.

Tatl poked and pointed. "Look! Froggies! Aren't they so cute?"

Link's eyes slid past the slimy blue frogs cavorting by the riverbank, and focused on a building on the far side of the stream – barely more than a window and door that protruded from the laundry pool walls. He didn't remember seeing it last night, but they hadn't been paying attention to much aside from the stray faerie. Wondering if his friend was still hell bent on taking shelter, he squeaked and pointed at it.

Tatl took one look and grimaced. "That house is Bomber territory. Full of booby traps. Plus I'll bet it's locked." She sighed, shaking the water out of her wings. "There used to be a little shed here a few years back. Looks like they tore it down. Never mind. Let's go back."

Link turned to leave, but he had barely entered the narrow passage back before running head first into a long blue skirt.

"Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't see you," said the owner of the skirt, taking a few steps back. "Hello, Mr Scrub. How about this rain?" She met Link's gaze.

The woman had dark red hair, sad blue eyes, and perhaps most importantly she carried an elegant little umbrella which was keeping her quite dry. (Seeing this, Tatl sat up straight.) The part of Link's mind that gauged enemies in combat noted the high heels and the pointy end of the umbrella, marking her as a potential threat, even as everything about her posture and her forlorn half-smile told him she was harmless.

She took his lack of response the wrong way. "Oh, I see... I'm in your way. I'll..."

"No!" said Tatl quickly, darting under the shelter of the umbrella. "Stay right there. Don't move." Without further ado she started drying herself off. "Ah..."

Link backed out of the alleyway, letting the woman pass. She muttered a 'thank you' and walked towards the laundry pool, settling on a small wooden bench. Tatl followed the umbrella closely, forcing Link to follow as well.

"Such a rainy day," sighed the woman as Link sat down in the mud at her feet. "Do you scrubs feel sad on rainy days, too?"

He shrugged, but she was staring off into the distance, waiting for him to _say_ something. After a few seconds, she turned to look at him, puzzled.

Tatl came to the rescue. "Little Deku kid there isn't supposed to talk right now... uh... he has a cold. A Deku scrub cold. A very rare kind of Deku cold you've never heard about which means he can't speak." She prodded the mesh above her. "Nice umbrella."

"Oh?" said the lady. "I'm sorry to hear that. You must be upset."

"Oh, yeah," said Tatl, "he's totally miserable."

The red-haired woman nodded and stared far away, saying nothing.

Link took the opportunity to beckon at the faerie. Surely she didn't seriously want to spend the whole day under that one umbrella?

In response, Tatl poked her tongue out at him. She grabbed a fistful of hair and started squeezing it dry like a sponge.

The woman looked at Link again. "Deku scrubs are supposed to like rain. At least one of us has reason to be happy..." She sighed. "I should be happier, shouldn't I?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" said Tatl absent-mindedly.

"I'm...I don't suppose you've seen a man in this area?" the red-haired woman ventured. "He's about this tall..." - she held her hand up in the air - "solidly built... his name-"

"Ooh!" squealed Tatl, "is that him?"

Two heads turned to see where she was pointing – dashing across the bridge from the other side of the stream was a large bearded Goron wearing a necklace of heavy stones. He was clearly unhappy with the rain, hunching hunched over as he was with his hands over his head. Link could tell that if it came to a fight the Goron could flatten him in seconds.

"No," said the umbrella lady, watching the Goron run past, face averted. "Not a Goron... a human. He looks like this..." From the folds of her dress she produced a small wooden mask which vaguely resembled a man's face – a pale, white face with long blue hair. "Does that strike a bell?"

"Nope," said Tatl, poking with childish curiosity at the umbrella handle.

Link shook his head apologetically... and then froze. _That can't be right..._ He turned around but the Goron was gone. Where had it come from? The laundry pool had been empty just a minute ago, which meant that either it had been hiding underwater, or it had just emerged from the building Tatl had called 'Bomber territory'. He frowned. Didn't the Bombers distrust adults? What secret business could a Goron possibly have with them in there?

"I see," said the woman sadly, and Link turned his attention back to her. No point in making up conspiracy theories. "He... disappeared about one month ago. I saw the postman come by here and thought maybe... maybe it was..." Her lower lip was trembling.

Unsure what to do, Link reached out a hand and rested it gently on her knee.

She took a ragged breath. "But perhaps it's for the best. I... he... he probably doesn't want to..." Her eyes squeezed closed. "I'm... I'm actually... afraid to meet him... to hear the reason he wanted to disappear..."

Her face was wet despite the umbrella.

"Oh, please, don't _cry_," said Tatl, as if noticing the woman for the first time.

"What if it was because of me?" sobbed the red-haired woman, letting go of the umbrella to bury her face in her hands. "What if it was something I did? There are only two days to the carnival and I don't know if I should wait for him..."

"Hey!" said Tatl angrily as the umbrella clattered to the ground. She motioned to Link. "No point hanging around, Deku boy. Take the umbrella, by the way."

Ignoring the faerie, Link lifted the umbrella out of the mud and carefully placed it on the bench beside the sad woman. Her choked sobs continued, and Link stood there for a long while looking at this sad woman crying.

In that moment he felt himself brush against the surface of a bottomless despair. What difference did it make if the moon fell or not? The world would be just as miserable, and for all his so-called heroic deeds he didn't have the power to make people happy. How many people were there in Termina, so devoid of hope that they welcomed the end of the world as the final punctuation mark to their joyless lives? The voice that belonged to the Kokiri child stirred in his head, taunting him: _You are the same as them. Alone. Unhappy. Lost. Soulless._ In that moment he would have given his life here on this dying world to bring a smile to this unfamiliar woman's face for just a few seconds. In that moment he would have welcomed death.

"Deku kid!" hissed Tatl in his ear. "Get a grip! There's nothing we can do for her, you hear me? Nothing! Now leave the poor woman alone!"

Reluctantly, Link stepped away from the red-haired woman. Insensitive insect or not, his companion had a point.

Slowly, ignoring the rain for different reasons, Link and Tatl made their way out of the laundry pool, back through the muddy narrow alleyway, back to the town square, and kept walking with no real destination in mind, waiting for nightfall.

It was a few minutes before Tatl spoke again. "Pansy," she muttered.

He wasn't sure who she was talking about.

The rain came down even harder than before.

* * *

**A/N:** I'm trying to keep my brother well away from the keyboard right now, so I'll be brief. This chapter is very short. The next chapter will probably be a while. And, uh... mice. Shoes and mice.

Yep, that seems fairly self-explanatory. Have a nice day?


	8. Playdate

**INSOMNIA**_**  
**_**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

* * *

**CYCLE 0: CLAUSTROPHOBIA  
NIGHT of the SECOND DAY**

**The Northern Park  
Clock Town**

Tatl's second night without her brother began busily. She spent a good half hour next to a brightly burning torch, drying hours of rain from her hair. She stopped to admire her reflection in every puddle in the town square. She 'borrowed' candy from some passing children and introduced Deku boy to the miracle of chocolate. She pulled faces at the scowling moon, secretly hoping that she might get a reaction from it. Not after long it was almost eleven 'o' clock – time to meet with the Bombers – and not once had she stopped to wonder where Tael was.

But when they got to the meeting spot, the Bombers hadn't showed. So they sat down and waited. And waited. And waited.

Growing impatient, Tatl cast her eyes up towards the clock tower. It had stood there telling perfect time ever since Clock Town had first been built, survived droughts, famine and war, and there it still remained, beating the same steady tick-tock it had for centuries. The clock had no hands; instead one told time by watching a slowly spinning disc which bore the ancient symbols for sun and moon – the endless cycle of time. A series of rotating outer rings gave more accurate measurements, to the minute and second respectively.

Tatl rarely paid attention to clocks, so it took her a few seconds to read the time from the clock. Normally she didn't mind being so slow, but with the Deku boy sitting next to her as she struggled to read the markings, she felt a sudden stab of embarrassment. She blinked with surprise, relieved that it was dark. Wouldn't want to make him feel important.

Anyway, the time: the moon was nearly on top, meaning it was around eleven. The markings on the inner ring were pointing to the right, so that made it... a quarter past eleven. Well past the meeting time. The Bombers were late.

"Figures," she muttered under her breath, but Deku boy must have heard her because he shot her a look. She shrugged and said, "The Bombers are never on time."

He nodded. He looked impatient. Tatl could sympathise.

They waited.

After some time it occurred to Tatl that there was a pretty good chance the Bombers were never going to show up. They were just little kids; it was probably way past their bedtimes. Yeah, way past their bedtimes. She smirked.

A slight movement beside her drew her attention back to the Deku boy. He was staring off into the distance, unaware of her curious glances. She wondered what he was thinking. Probably something sad. The kid was always sad. He was probably still moping about Skull Kid's curse, but really, two days was _plenty_ of time to get over it. Tatl wished he would snap out of it and try looking a little more cheerful. If only there was something she could say.

Well, actually there _was_ this little speech she'd been planning since yesterday morning that went something along these lines: _Hey, stupid! You're a Deku scrub now, so live with it! It doesn't have to be a bad thing, I bet there are loads of perfectly happy Deku scrubs out there, so why don't you cut out the glum faces and start enjoying your new life?_ Tatl thought it was a pretty good speech all considered, but every time she opened her mouth she found herself looking into those dopey little eyes and she knew her little speech wasn't going to do anything but make him even more angry with her. (He _was_ angry at her, she was sure of it.)

Her little brother would have known what to say. Tael was younger than her and not as clever but he was a really smooth talker. On many occasions he'd weaseled them both out of some truly messy situations. Tatl hoped he was still okay wherever he was. Ever since Skull Kid had started wearing that creepy mask, he'd begun treating the two faeries worse and worse. What if he was doing terrible things to Tael now that his sister was no longer around to protect him? No, no, she couldn't think about that, she'd promised herself she wouldn't. As far as Tatl was concerned, her brother was fine until proven otherwise. Until she made it to the observatory there was no point even...

"Where the _hell _are the Bombers?" she said aloud.

Deku boy jumped at the sudden noise. Maybe a little too loud. She felt a stab of guilt and then a wave of revulsion – who was _he_ to tell her when she could and couldn't speak? Ever since she'd run into Deku boy he had been nothing but bad luck. If it wasn't for him everything would be so much better. She snarled and turned her back on him.

**-oOo-**

Link had been on the verge of dozing off when the little faerie's sudden exclamation had jerked him awake. Tired as he was, he knew that it was just as well. He couldn't waste time sleeping, not until the Deku scrub curse and the falling moon were well behind him.

While he waited for the Bombers to turn up, he kept his mind busy by running through all the strange things he'd learnt about the Deku body. When he'd first become trapped in this form he'd felt completely helpless, but now, especially after the skirmish with the little dog last night, he was coming to understand how to defend himself in this feather-light body.

A flicker of movement in the distance caught his eye. Had the Bombers finally arrived? If Link wanted any chance of finding the Skull Kid and having the curse lifted he needed to get to the observatory, and getting on good terms with Jim and his band of headscarf-wearing boys looked like the only way to get there.

Speaking of which, it was definitely them approaching: even in the sinister moonlight it was easy to spot four blue heads and one red one.

Link nudged Tatl, who shot him a nasty look before following his eyes to the Bomber gang trudging down the dirt path towards them.

"Huh," she said, brightening. "They showed."

She raised one arm in a kind of wave. (_That _was something Link had never seen a faerie do before. Could they even make her out as more than a pinprick of light from that distance?)

Apparently spotting Link and Tatl, the foremost boy broke into a run, closely followed by his fellow Bombers. They pattered across the muddy grass and stopped just in front of them, forming a neat line.

Their leader, Jim, was the last to arrive, strolling casually in and regarding the two with a deliberately unimpressed nod.

"Tatl," he said, tilting his cap. "Deku scrub. Nice to see you two again."

"You took your time," said Tatl pointedly.

Jim shrugged. "I guess I did."

"Oh yeah? Care to tell us why you left us waiting for..." - she glanced at the clock - "a whole hour?"

"Wow, look at all those _birds_," said Jim, staring past them.

"What?" hissed Tatl, spinning around. "I don't see them! Where?"

The other Bombers all laughed loudly, before Tatl turned back around and shot them a look cold enough to freeze lava.

"Oh, _real _mature, boys," she said disgustedly. "You must be so proud..."

Jim ignored her, looking at Link thoughtfully. "So you two are trying to get to the observatory?"

Link nodded.

Tatl cut in. "Look, we know you have a secret passage there. So why don't you cut out the wingshreds and just tell us how to find it?"

"As if you don't already know where it is," said Jim. "It sure sounds like Skull Kid spilled all those little secrets to you."

"Well, maybe he _did_ tell me," said Tatl. "Maybe he also mentioned that the secret code changes every week. So even if he did, it wouldn't matter anyway."

Jim grimaced. "That creep was nothing but trouble. Okay. You want the code? We'll give it to you – on one condition."

"Yeah," echoed a few of the Bombers. "One condition!" They all looked the same in this near darkness.

"I'm going to give you a little test," Jim continued.

Tatl narrowed her eyes. "If this involves helping old ladies across the road, then-"

"Nothing like that. All you two have to do is play a little game with us. If you win, we give you the code, end of story."

"_Games_? You want to..." Tatl gestured wildly at the moon. "The world is _ending _and you're wasting our time with kiddie games? Are you _mad_?"

"Not _games_," Jim corrected her. "Game. Just one old-fashioned hide-and-seek. Nothing complicated."

"Are you _mad_?" repeated Tatl. She looked at Link, gesturing wildly at the Bombers. "Is he mad? Tell me he's raving insane. He has got to be out of his mind."

Link nodded timidly.

"Exactly!" said Tatl, turning back to Jim. "See? This is crazy. We don't have time for pointless games. Tell you what, you give me the code now, and then we play your game some other time."

"Pointless?" The leader of the Bombers smirked and made a quick hand gesture to the boys standing behind him, one of whom pulled out an amorphous lump of cloth from the folds of his clothes. "I don't see you two doing anything about the moon."

"The- how in hell is playing hide and seek supposed to save the world?" sputtered Tatl.

Ignoring her, the Bombers concentrated on unwrapping the tiny cloth parcel. Link watched with interest as it unfolded to reveal a curved brass stick lined with bells. It jingled lightly in the breeze.

One of the Bombers passed it across to Jim, who shook it gently, making a high-pitched ringing sound much louder than the stick's small size would have suggested.

Tatl paused in her spiel to puzzle out the strange object. "Isn't that, uh, some kind of music stick? A tamberina or something?"

"I dunno. We only found it a few hours ago. Here..." Jim held it out towards Link, who grasped it tightly. "You have to carry this with you, okay? You tag us with this thing."

"Tag? I thought you said hide and- oh, wait," said Tatl, eyes narrowing. "I get it. That thing rings, we wake half the town up, we get arrested, and you have a nice long laugh?"

"We couldn't catch you two earlier today, why should anyone else?" Jim shrugged and took a few steps back. "Anyway, we needed _someone_ to keep the guards busy. I figured we might as well get you guys to help out."

"Keep the guards busy for what?" said Tatl. A few seconds of silence passed, and she rolled her eyes and went on. "Okay, okay, so we run around waving this bell thing for you lot while you go steal candy canes or whatever you like to do. Is the kiddie game bit necessary?"

"You've got until dawn to catch all of us," said Jim as if he hadn't heard her, sweeping his arm across to indicate himself and his four little lackeys. "Make sure you're noisy. Have fun."

"_Fun_?"

"Let's go!"

As he finished that last word the Bombers split, the five of them dashing off in different directions all at once, their footsteps dampened by the wet grass. Between the darkness and the silence it was a truly surreal sight.

Link stared blankly at their receding forms for a few brief seconds before Tatl whacked him in the head with her palm. "Come on! Follow them!" He took off, wobbly little legs carrying him through the grass with a speed that belied their unstable appearance.

He singled out the Bomber who seemed to be running the slowest (slightly shorter than the others with a big number '5' hand-drawn on his top), and simply ran a straight line in that direction. The music stick in his hand shook loudly with every footstep, making so much noise that soon he could barely hear his feet hit the ground.

Bomber number five followed a weaving path through the trees before ducking under a stone tunnel and slipping into the winding alleyways to the west. Link kept a steady pace behind him, cringing every time they passed an open window. Soon enough the little boy began to slow, and without hesitation Link shot forward in a burst of speed, outstretched 'tamberina' tapping the kid lightly on the back. They both skidded to a halt.

"Oh, you got me!" the Bomber said without the slightest hint of disappointment. "Only four left!"

"No, really?" snapped Tatl. "Thanks, we'd never – um, Deku boy, behind you...?"

Link turned around just in time to see a very peeved looking soldier creeping up towards him. He yelped, turned, ran.

A couple of bleary-eyed faces stared at him from high-up windows, dimly lit by the torches in the street. With his body on autopilot, he heaved an inward sigh, wondering what the people back home would have said if they could see him now, running around like a complete public nuisance.

"Stop right there, Deku scrub!" cried the huffing and puffing guard just inches behind him.

"Those guards don't seem to know how to say anything else," observed Tatl demurely, sounding for all the world like they were in the middle of a picnic.

Link kept running.

"You're not very talkative, are you?" Tatl sighed.

**-oOo-**

The lone guard giving chase soon became two, then three, then half a dozen. At one point, even a couple of stray dogs joined in the chase, brining the count to eight souls versus one Deku scrub. Link's new body had fatigued quickly on several occasions the day before, but now after the rainstorm he felt like he could run all night if he had to – and run all night he did. Tailed closely by the soldiers, whose constant cries of 'stop right there!' sounded torn between their dislike for lawbreakers and their palpable relief at not having to sit still all night, Link ran through nearly every street in Clock Town, wondering: if a little water was all a Deku needed to keep on going, could he keep running for ever and ever, far from civilisation and from evil, never having to stop?

The Bombers made little attempt at hiding. When Link found them they were each standing in plain sight near a main road, already looking exhausted (evidently while he had been keeping the guards busy, they'd been doing some heavy lifting) – they all put up a chase, but it seemed even the most energetic little kid couldn't keep pace with an invigorated young Deku scrub. When he tagged them with the tamberina, which had been ringing for so long now he'd become deaf to its noise, they laughed ('guess you got me!') and disappeared from sight before the pursuing guards barrelled around a corner into view.

Number five, number three, number two, number four, and then just around five as dawn threatened to approach Link found Jim standing in the middle of the town square, not making any effort to run. His hands and face was covered in... dirt? Soot? Whatever it was, he looked positively grey.

"Nice one, Deku scrub," he said, as Link tagged him and handed him the music stick which – finally – quietened down.. "Guess you win." He glanced over Link's shoulder, eyes widening. "Wow, that's a lot of guards... lose 'em, will ya? See you back at the tree."

And so one last burst of twilit sprinting. Link took full advantage of his smaller size, squeezing through gaps between crates and impossibly narrow alleyways as he ran.

When he was sure the guards were gone, he heaved a sigh of relief (which in his squeaky voice sounded more like a whistle than anything).

"We done?" muttered Tatl.

Link blinked. He'd completely forgotten about her during the chase, and it suddenly occurred to him that he hadn't noticed her at all for the past few hours. He looked around, trying to spot her.

"I'm here, I'm here..."

He felt movement on top of his head. Three seconds later she was clambering out from under his cap. _That would explain it_, he thought.

"I figured I'd let you do all the running," she said. "You bob from side to side when you run, did you know that? It's impossible to sleep in there." She hopped off, wings buzzing to life, and hovered right in front of his eyes. "You really need to learn to consider other people's feelings, you know?"

They made their way back to the park, where Jim and the other Bombers were all waiting. As they got close, the younger Bombers gave an approximation of a cheer.

"Good to see you in one piece!" said Jim. He was looking a bit cleaner now. He must have had time to wash his face off.

"Yeah!" echoed the Bombers behind him. "Good job!"

"Just cut to the chase," said Tatl. "Where's the observatory?"

"You mean, _how_ do you _get _to the observatory," corrected Jim. "Like I said before, we've got a secret entrance. Just follow the east wall along, and you'll see one of our youngest members standing guard. Tell him the code, and then just follow the passage down to the observatory."

Link nodded. Tatl shot him a look.

"The old astronomer's a good guy," Jim added. "He's the only adult who'll spend any time playing with us kids. I'm sure he'll be happy to help you two."

"Yeah!" echoed the other Bombers. "He'll be happy to help you!"

"Cut that out!" snapped Tatl. She looked (understandably) impatient. "What's the code?"

"Oh, that's right, I nearly forgot," said Jim brightly. He turned to his underlings. "All right! Line up, guys!"

Very quickly, the Bombers all ran up beside him, swapping places one or two times until they were all in a specific order.

"Bombers – turn around!" ordered Jim.

They simultaneously turned their backs, once again revealing the big numbers written on the back of their clothes. From left to right, it read out a specific sequence. Link closed his eyes and committed the numbers to memory.

"Got that?" said Jim, spinning back around.

Tatl was up in his face in moments. "You. Have got. To be kidding me."

"What?" said Jim. "That _is_ the code. I wouldn't lie to you."

"Five, four, three, two, one!?" said Tatl incredulously. "We wasted a whole night running around like idiots for five, four, three, two, one? Are you telling me I spent the last six hours this close to the pointy end of a spear just to get a code I could have guessed in ten seconds?"

Jim shrugged. "We change the code every week. There are only so many combinations."

"I... I think I hate you, Jim," said Tatl weakly. "Really, I do. It would be nice if you could just run off and die right now."

Silence.

"Bombers Secret Society of Justice forever!" cried Bomber number four, waving a fist.

"Bombers Secret Society of Justice forever!" echoed the other Bombers in perfect unison.

"I give up," spat Tatl. "Let's go. Now."

She and Link started off to the east, where the sky was beginning to lighten. Soon enough it would be dawn, and then their time on this world would really be running short.

"Good luck!" called one of the Bombers behind them. Their voices all sounded the same.

"Deku boy," said Tatl wearily, "promise me something. When we get you back to normal, first thing you're going to do is give those little brats a beating, mm-kay?"

If she was expecting a 'yes, yes I will' from him, she was sorely disappointed.

* * *

**A/N:** Urgh... three and a half thousand words of writing to push the plot forward by half a millimetre? This was the most painful chapter yet (and hopefully there won't be another one like it). If there are more mistakes than usual (i.e. no proof reading) or if it's boring as watching a dripping tap (i.e. author barely cares what happened during the second section), that would be why.

Okay, so it's my fault for following the game so closely, but seriously? Hide and seek? How on earth do you _write_ about that?

And to end on a positive note: Link kills something next chapter?


	9. The Predators Below

**INSOMNIA**_**  
**_**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

**The Eastern Thoroughfare  
Clock Town**

"Those guards are creeping me out," whispered Tatl, hovering close to Link's ears.

He couldn't help it; for a split second he glanced up at the handful of soldiers pointing at him and muttering among themselves. He dropped his eyes to the brick road before they noticed him staring at them.

His faerie companion was watching, too. "They suspect us, that's for sure. Bet they want to arrest us, but they're not sure you're the same scrub. You Deku are so hard to tell apart." She laughed loudly, then, with a glance at the guards, softly. "We sure made one hell of a ruckus last night, didn't we?"

The 'we' part was questionable, but Link had to agree. For every person they passed in the streets at this twilight hour, he felt a tiny twinge of guilt as he wondered whether he'd woken them up during the Bombers' game. Granted, these last few days hadn't exactly been normal circumstances, but he still felt bad about it. Link felt bad about a lot of things.

He chanced another look. Two of the guards were strolling straight towards him with a distinctly proud air of authority.

"Uh-oh," said Tatl. She shot him a pointed look. "Waiting for an invitation? Run!"

Evading the law... just great. Link was about to take her up on her suggestion when suddenly the guards froze in their tracks. With pained looks they turned around to face someone behind them. His interest piqued, Link shifted his weight, peering between the guards to see who it was.

Tatl didn't share his curiosity. "Don't just _stand_ there... this is your chance to run! Go, go, go!" She tried to push him forward, but was a little too small to pull it off.

The guards parted, revealing a little old lady talking animatedly. She looked distraught – and a little familiar. Link couldn't quite shake the feeling he'd seen her before. The lady turned and beckoned for the soldiers to follow her, and they moved off at a slow pace. It seemed the guards were required elsewhere.

As they were nearly out of view the guards shot one last unhappy look at Link and Tatl.

Tatl smacked him on the side of the head. "Stupid Deku boy. If you hadn't gotten lucky, you'd be on the pointy end of those guards' spears right now."

Link was halfway through preparing a scathing rebuttal before remembering that he wouldn't be able to give voice to it. Instead he shot her a look (another habit he seemed to be developing lately... perhaps he was spending too much time around her) and continued to stare at the spot where the guards had been standing.

With a hint of disdain, Tatl twisted her head to see where he was looking.

"Let me guess," she sighed, "you're trying to remember who that woman is."

_How does she do that?_, thought Link. He tilted his head slightly instead of nodding.

Tatl grinned. "Thought so. She had me stumped for a moment too. She was there in the park the other night, remember? We saw her getting mugged."

It took a second for the memory to resurface, but when it did it all came back in a rush: the bag snatcher skulking through the trees; his own fruitless pursuit of the thief; the weary old woman's quiet acceptance of the deed; the helplessness, the guilt. How could he have forgotten about it, even for an instant?

This wasn't like him. He was a hero, was he not?, a protector of the people, someone who had risked life and limb time and time again so that everyday citizens could live their lives free of pestilence and war. What kind of hero could watch an elderly lady being robbed and simply take it in his stride, rationalise it away, _forget_ about it? Being trapped in a weaker body might have made things harder for him, but it was no excuse for-

"Uh, I don't want to interrupt," interrupted Tatl, "but you're doing that thing again... all zoned out, staring into the distance or whatever... cut it out, okay? It's creepy."

With a roll of the eyes, she shot away. Instinctively, Link broke into a light run behind her.

Tatl's movement was erratic as always – to look at her zipping forward in chaotic zigzag bursts, she seemed more like a bright glowing ball ricocheting off a series of invisible walls than a living thinking creature trying to get from point A to point B. She certainly wasn't interested in making good time or saving her energy.

"What's wrong?" she teased, spinning around mid-flight to meet his eyes. "Can't run on those stumpy little legs?"

Now wasn't that strange? Back when Tatl had first started dragging him around Termina, a comment like that would have had him fervidly imagining how he would deliver poetic justice. Now, though, her wit (if you could call it that) barely fazed him. Either he was developing an immunity, or she was growing on him. Link hoped it was the latter.

The omnipresent bells of the Clock Tower began to toll, signalling the dawn of a new day. With the bells ringing that loud, it was only a matter of time until the streets began to fill. With luck he and she would be out of town by then. After all, time was of the essence.

**CYCLE 0: CLAUSTROPHOBIA  
DAWN of the THIRD DAY**

With its ominous rumbling at the limits of his hearing, Link didn't need to look up to know that the moon had crept even closer these last few hours. But he did: no point in denying the fear. He took a good look at the face into the moon, peering into its wild blood red eyes. Did it actually see him, he wondered, or was it just a scary face?

Of course, looking up like that was no simple matter for a Deku scrub. With Link's body angled all the way back as he walked, accidents were inevitable. After just a few seconds he bumped face first into a long pair of legs.

"Ah! Sorry! I... Link?"

_What?_ With a blink of confusion Link followed the legs up past the yellow blouse and scarf to the woman's face, which was all bright blue eyes and fiery orange hair. Her expression was surprised, curious. _Did she just call me..._

As their eyes met her face fell, her mouth forming a perfect 'oh' of disappointment. "Oh, you're just a _scrub_..." That last word was pronounced with enough derision to make Link wince. "I thought... your cap... cow's blood, never mind..."

Blushing, she lowered her head and shoved past, leaving a very confused Link staring after her.

"Did that woman just call you Lyn?" said Tatl, reappearing above his shoulder. "Even _I_ can tell you're a boy... what is it with you and redheads anyway? First that crazy sobby lady yesterday, and now her... heh, maybe it's a part of the curse?"

Ignoring her, Link tried to remember if he'd seen that woman before. Clearly if she associated his name with his hat he must have met her at some point on his travels, but for the life of him he couldn't place her. Her hair colour and voice reminded him of a girl he'd known back home, so perhaps a family connection? Unlikely... and that still didn't explain how the woman knew him...

Tatl snapped her fingers right in front of his eyes, making him jump. "Hey, calm down, I was only joking," she sighed. "Look, see over there? That little kid over there, wearing the yellow cap thing? He sure looks like a Bomber to me..."

A quick sprint brought them to where the Bomber boy stood, standing stiffly at attention in front of a nondescript part of the town wall. He regarded them uncertainly.

"Go away," he said petulantly, eyes darting back and forth between Link and Tatl. "Nothing here."

"Jim sent us," said Tatl. "We're after the observatory."

"Uh..." The boy looked them up and down. "You two don't look much like Bombers..."

"The password is five, four, three, two, one," smiled Tatl. "Good enough for you?"

"Huh," said the boy, shrugging slightly. "If you know the secret code, guess you really are Bombers. Dunno what Jim's thinking letting a scrub and a faerie in."

Nobody moved.

"Well?" said Tatl.

Obligingly the young Bomber led them over an area hidden behind a large building. Stepping carefully around jagged planks of wood and dusty debris, they soon reached a part of the massive town wall where part of the foundation appeared to be missing. The hole in the wall didn't go all the way through, though; instead it appeared to dip downwards, a sloping tunnel that grew very dark within the first few feet.

"There you go," said the boy. "This passage will take you to the Bombers' secret hideout. It leads into the sewers, so just follow the lights 'til you reach the observatory. You can come and go, but don't tell anyone else, okay? It's a..."

"If you say 'secret' I will rip out your throat," said Tatl with a scarily pleasant smile.

The Bomber's face turned white. "Uh..." Coughing uncomfortably, he looked at Link with a wide-eyed expression that just screamed _protect me!_. "Do you guys... uh... want a torch or something? It gets, um, pretty dark down there."

Tatl's response was instant. "A _torch_? No way." When Link looked confused, she sighed and said: "Hate to break it to you, Deku boy, but you're made of wood. You'd be an idiot to run around carrying a big flamey stick."

"Guess so," murmured the Bomber boy, one hand discreetly protecting his throat.

Tatl nodded to Link. "Move it!"

Slipping comfortably through the gap in the wall, Link began his descent through the tunnel, taking slow steps as the light receded. A few times he felt his feet sting as he stepped over something sharp, but as far as he knew he couldn't bleed to death as a Deku scrub so he pressed on.

The tunnel curved slowly left and right, soon cutting off the last traces of natural light behind him. It was nearly impossible for him to see his own hands four minutes in, let alone the path before him. He stretched his arms forward, feeling for any sudden turns or changes in the lay of the land. His heart skipped a beat as the path suddenly dropped by an inch.

It was the first time in days he'd spent outside of town, and the change in the soundscape made him realise how he'd become acclimatised to the ambient noises of Clock Town. To say it was silent down here would be wrong; even underneath the steady pitter-patter of his feet and the humming of Tatl's wings, there were other noises dancing on the edge of his subconscious. He perked his ears, trying to latch on to the sounds.

A rumbling sound. Deep, irregular, as if the land itself was trembling in anger at his presence, or in fury at the approaching moon. As soon his ears had found the noise he could feel it too; the sinister vibration of the ground beneath his feet. Walking on the surface of this simmering well of primal energy, Link felt very small. At that moment he wouldn't have been surprised if the earth opened up and swallowed him whole.

"Hey," whispered Tatl from somewhere behind him, "is it me, or do you hear water running?"

She was right; he could faintly hear the sound up ahead. It might have been an illusion, but for a second he thought he could also see a glimmer of light in the distance.

He turned to face Tatl – and immediately turned back, wishing he hadn't. Her faerie's glow, normally just strong enough to make her visible in a crowded place, was in such stark contrast to the surrounding darkness that it hurt his eyes. Right now she was a blur; a ball of yellow light with wings attached.

Slowly the path leveled out, and the dirt path gave way to cobblestones. As this happened, Link became aware of a pungent rotting odour. That made sense... he'd never been inside a sewer before but this seemed on par with expectations...

The narrow earthen walls on either side suddenly ended and the view was illuminated by a dimly flickering torch not far away. In the distance, he could make out another torch behind that torch: the path that the Bomber kid had referred to. They were standing on a raised stone platform next to a river of filthy-looking water which flowed slowly past. The ground was covered with muck, in which was imprinted the many sets of footprints leading off to the left where the torch was.

As Link shuffled forward, a tiny shape screeched and scuttled past his feet. Whether it was a spider or rat, he couldn't tell.

"Lovely place," observed Tatl. "Guess we follow the lights."

Making a point not to get close to the naked flame, Link walked past the first torch and began the trek through the sewers.

**-oOo-**

Nothing was ever as simple for Link as he would have liked. Not only were the guiding torches so sparse that they had to stop and search at every fork, but the cobblestone path, which began innocently enough, was terribly inconsistent. At one point it became so narrow that Link had to edge across it with his back to the wall to avoid falling into the muck. At another point parts of it had crumbled and been washed away, resulting in body-length puddles which he gingerly jumped between. Later still the path disappeared altogether.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," said Tatl, staring not at the dead end but across the river of sewage where a torch sparked and crackled mockingly. The path, it seemed, picked up on the other side. "How in hell do the Bombers get across? Do they swim through that stuff or something? Wingshreds..."

There was only one thing for it: Link remembered having abused his buoyancy to walk across a stream a few nights back. Granted, that had been at the laundry pool, a significantly cleaner body of water, but surely the principle remained the same – _take big hops, stay light on your feet, five steps max_...

He closed his eyes, trying to judge the distance to solid land. When he opened them, Tatl had already started across, keeping as high as possible.

"You can get all dirty if you want to," she declared. "I'll be up here, thanks."

The narrow ledge didn't allow much of a run up, but Link didn't need it. Pushing off the wall, he started a mad series of hops across the water, counting how many steps he had before his limbs soaked up too much water to stay afloat. Five, four, three, two... as he hit the water the last time he panicked slightly, fearing he wasn't going to make it all the way across and he would sink into that filth, and so he pushed off against the water extra hard. He leaped, spiralling through the air-

-and sailed clear over the path and smacked straight into the adjoining wall. He bounced off and landed hard on his rump.

"Graceful," giggled Tatl as he blinked stars from his eyes. "You should be an acrobat."

He shot her a glare but she wasn't looking.

As time wore on and the path twisted to and fro, Link found himself losing track of how far they'd come. He wished he'd thought to find out how far away the observatory actually was before coming down here. Maybe they were nearly there, maybe they were barely halfway.

Tatl was the first to notice the change in the scenery. "Hey, look," she said, pointing into the distance, "three lights down. Looks like steps."

Link squinted, trying to make out the ground underneath the torch in question. It _did _look as if there were steps up ahead. Maybe they had arrived.

"I'll be glad to smell some fresh air," said Tatl, zooming ahead. Link, too, quickened his pace.

He'd covered half the distance when a rustling sound from overhead brought him to a cautious halt. He looked up, trying to spot in the shadows the source of the noise-

Without warning a blur of movement filled his field of vision and he was knocked backwards, spinning through the air for a few brief moments before bouncing off the stony ground and landing on his side.

He pushed himself up from the ground and, turning his head, found himself locked in a staring contest with a pair of glowing inhuman eyes. It was a giant spider, with an exoskeleton shaped eerily like a human skull. Link had encountered similar spiders before – Skulltulas were common in dark, damp places like this – but he'd had a sword back then.

Besides he had never seen one as massive as this. It was twice his height, maybe even more. His mind flashed back to the skirmish a couple of nights before, an uncomfortable thought occurring to him: if he'd nearly lost to a stray dog in the streets of Clock Town, what chance did he have against a powerful predator in its natural element?

The spider lunged, and he hopped back out of reach, buying himself a few seconds. His mind whirred, trying to remember what he'd learnt about Deku scrubs' natural defences. Something to do with unbalancing himself to stay balanced, pirouettes and hops and standing on one foot... all right, that couldn't be too hard, could it?

The Skulltula made another grab for him and this time he rushed it, skidding on a single leg, whirling around in the same tight spinning attack that had gotten him out of his last scrape. He hit the spider as the spider hit him, but unlike puppies the spider was many times his weight, and the impact knocked him back. By some miracle he didn't land in the sewage, instead face-planting on a section of particularly hard cobblestones.

The concussion roared through his body and the little Kokiri boy began to scream in his head _run you fool just run you can't hurt it you don't have a sword you're not even human any more if you stay here it will just kill you run_ and he staggered to his feet and the Skulltula knocked him to the ground again and there was absolutely nothing he could do because it was the Deku Tree all over again-

_-didn't want to die-_

_-thinking, no, he thrashed, no, thinking, sword, no he thrashed-_

"_-okay, just listen to me, all right, just listen, breathe," said Navi-_

_-pain shooting through his leg sight of red-_

_-"don't want to die" he whispered again and again-_

_-thrashed, no thinking he screamed, thrashed, sword, no thinking-_

"Get _up_!" shrieked someone in his ear and obediently he rolled over just in time for the spider's sinking fangs to miss him.

Somehow he was on his feet again. The Skulltula screeched angrily. It reared back, waiting to pounce.

"You _idiot_," yelled Tatl in his ear, "what are you doing, waiting for it to eat you? Shoot it!"

_Shoot-? Oh_, thought Link dully, his combat mind slowly whirring back to life. _The Great Faerie's magic_. Without thought he inhaled and formed one of those magic bubbles that had helped get him this far. They should still, his gut told him, pack a punch...

The Skulltula pounced. He blew. The projectile exploded on the outside of the spider's skull-like armour but when the sparks had gone it barely seemed to have made a dent. He dived to the side to avoid being crushed under the oncoming arachnid's weight.

"_What_!?" said Tatl, and she was looking at him, not the spider. "Why did you- wingshreds, don't tell me you don't even know about the _Skulltula_? You don't try to shoot it in the head, it's protected by a hard shell! Its _stomach_ is soft, you moron!"

Tatl's words hit home, and Link berated himself. How could he have forgotten? He'd killed these things before, he'd spent an eternity memorising the weak spots of every nasty creature he came across. He readied another bubble, and stared straight into the beast's eyes, waiting for the moment to come.

The moment came. The Skulltula reared, preparing to lunge forward, and Link shot the bubble, using up a bit more of his precious magic power. It flew crookedly but still managed to hit the spider in its soft underbelly just as its legs left the ground. The resulting impact didn't affect the Skulltula's momentum but sent it spinning so that when it landed right in front of Link it was on its back.

For a few brief seconds Link stood there, mesmerised by the eight legs all scrambling for a purchase on the ground. Then he came back to his senses and charged.

He hit his enemy with a perfectly executed Deku pirouette. Unlike last time his enemy wasn't moving, and so when Link bounced back off, the Skulltula also rebounded, the protective shell which made it so hard to hurt now sliding without friction across the cobblestones. Link rushed the spider again and this time it went sliding even faster, further... and off the path into the slimy sewer water.

The monster landed in the sewer with a loud splash, thrashing about wildly as its primitive mind registered the danger of the water. Its inhuman shrieks continued even as the muck rose around it and the spider sunk out of sight. A few seconds later and even the ripples had been swept away in the current.

Link stared at that spot in the water, his pulse slowing. He was trapped as a Deku scrub, he'd been taken by surprise, he'd panicked, and yet somehow he'd survived the fight. Maybe Zelda had been right. Maybe the Goddesses were still watching over him.

_Four hundred and thirteen_, he thought.

"You killed it," said Tatl, sounding more surprised than emotionally affected. "Not bad for a Deku."

Their eyes met for a split second. She looked away quickly, like she'd seen something she didn't like, and Link stared at her staring into thin air.

In a moment she would say 'hurry up' or 'let's go' or something of the sort and then they would be off again, racing against time to break the curse or stop the moon or whatever it was that had seemed so important five minutes ago. But right now they were standing here and nobody was moving and there was nothing but the the gurgling of the sewer canal and the crackling of the torches.

The water flowed on.

* * *

**A/N:** You might be able to tell how I wasn't entirely sure where to break off, as this chapter is supposed to flow (hahaha no) straight into the next one. Actually I was going to just do them as a single stupidly long chapter but I figured smaller chunks were probably better both for me and anybody trying to sit through them.

If you're going to be reviewing... the combat was: too fast/slow?, too long/short?, too detailed/vague?, too repetitive/random?

In other news, 413 was just a guess, the psuedo-flashback will be properly dealt with - _eventually_ - and the next chapter will be so dialogue heavy that your eyes will fall out of their sockets and blood will spill out everywhere and you'll be like 'ew, gore' even though all they're talking about is the weather or something.

(Guess what the next chapter is called!)


	10. The Heavens Above

**INSOMNIA**_**  
**_**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

As they'd hoped, a series of steps leading up appeared several torches down, and in under a minute they'd reached the bottom of the staircase and begun to climb. Unlike the cobblestones they'd been treading on for the last eternity, the steps were of smooth brickwork, a welcome change to Link's aching feet.

The steps went up for a while, at least a few minutes, before they leveled out into a narrow corridor barely lit at all. The walls and ceiling still hummed with that distinct subterranean sound, but the subliminal feeling of claustrophobia was fading away: they were much closer to the surface than before.

"We've _got _to be there by now," said Tatl, hovering by Link's side. She sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose. "This trip had better be worth it."

The corridor turned sharp right then sharp left, opening up into a high-ceilinged chamber dotted with cobwebs and moss. For a few disoriented seconds Link thought they had stumbled into some sort of temple, but then he remembered that they were still in the sewer systems. Besides, the walls were too plain and the room generally too unadorned to be a place of worship. Not counting the two torch brackets faintly burning on the opposite wall, there was nothing to see here...

Hold that thought. Link's eyes honed in on a ladder placed flush up against the far wall, right between the torches. Well, that made sense enough; they'd hardly come all this way for a dead end. He craned his head, eyes following the ladder up – and found himself staring straight into the eyes of Majora's Mask.

He froze on the spot, fear tautening every muscle in his body. He hadn't seen that mask since the Skull Kid had used it to curse him, but even in this near-darkness its psychedelic markings were unmistakable. Now he knew a little more about the mask, courtesy of the Great Faerie: a dangerous magical artifact, locked into an endless cycle of destroying and consuming, powerful enough to send the moon crashing into the world and obliterate Termina. A force to be reckoned with.

"Skull Kid...?" breathed Tatl, terror in her voice and an unreadable expression on her face. Despite the warnings she must have still felt some loyalty to her former friend.

So. The Skull Kid had found them, not the other way round. But wasn't this what Link had wanted anyway? A chance to get rid of this curse, to get things back to normal? When the Great Faerie had told him all he needed was to reclaim his ocarina, he'd told himself he would find a way when the time came, but now, standing face to face with his antagonist, he felt less sure.

_But you never had a plan, did you?_, jeered the voice of the Kokiri boy, the one who was dead now. _You were just going to walk up and hope that he'd let you live long enough to get on your knees and beg for that ocarina. He's going to kill you now. That's all right. Turn around. Run. You don't have to die this way._

Link forced the voice back, never breaking eye contact with the mask in the shadows. Biting down his fear, he took a hesitant step forward.

Spurred by the movement, Tatl moved a little closer. She opened her mouth. "Sk..." She choked and winced. Taking a deep breath, she tried again. "Skull Kid." The words cut through the deathly silence. Emboldened, she raised her voice. "Hey! Answer me when I'm talking to you!" Her words echoed against the walls of the room.

Then: silence. The Mask's eyes never left Link's.

Careful not to make any sudden movements, Link inched forward.

"No? Okay. Fine." The little faerie's voice quivered with fear, but to her credit she didn't waver. "We don't want any trouble, okay?" She paused until the lack of response became impossible to ignore. "Just... just give the little blue thing back to the kid, okay? That's all we're asking." She raised her palms. "That's all we're asking."

The wild yellow-red eyes of the Mask laughed silently at them. _You have no chance_, they seemed to say. With a sudden jolt Link realised he'd seen those eyes somewhere else – they were the bloodshot eyes of the falling moon.

The only sound was the faintest echo of running water.

"Come on, Skull Kid. Please just say something. Why... why aren't you saying anything?" Her voice was barely a whisper. "Skull Kid, cut it out. You're scaring me..."

She moved closer, one tiny movement at a time. Then she froze with her back to Link, who wasn't sure whether to step forward or back.

"Skull Kid...? What... I..." She raised a trembling finger, pointing it at the Mask. "I... I think you'd better have a look at this." Pause. "Deku boy."

Slowly Link moved to where she was, all the while keeping his eyes fixed at that same spot. Then, as he drew closer to Tatl, his surroundings brightened nearly imperceptibly. As it happened, he noticed something he hadn't before, a murky shape behind the Skull Kid's mask whose outline was just in the corner of his vision. He couldn't tell what it was, and so he glanced at the outline – breaking eye contact with the Mask for a split second-

Tatl exhaled loudly. Link jumped, but the Skull Kid hadn't moved.

Wait. Now, tracing the faint outline of a shape with his eyes, he realised that no, it wasn't the Skull Kid at all, nor was it Majora's Mask he'd been staring at all this time. It was... some kind of drawing, he realised. An image in the mask's likeness, painted onto something and suspended in midair. The Skull Kid hadn't found them after all. Link exhaled, realising only then that he'd been holding his breath.

Hovering above him, Tatl opened her lips quietly. "It's not Skull Kid. It's not him." She let out a laugh, a harsh mirthless tone. "I... it's a balloon, Deku boy. Wingshreds, it's just a balloon... What the hell is it doing there? Is this someone's idea of a joke?"

Walking up closer, Link saw she was right. What he had thought was Majora's Mask was actually an obscenely large balloon floating directly above the torches, light being cast upon it such that it looked like the real thing. Judging by the way the ladder disappeared behind it, it was blocking an opening of some sort.

"Well?"

Link looked up. Tatl had her back to him. Her voice sounded strained.

"What are you waiting for? It's not-" She made a choking sound. "Ugh, sorry... I was saying... it's... oh, just hurry up and pop the damn thing..."

With another precious morsel of magic power, he complied. The magically charged bubble hit the giant balloon with a _pop_ (Link winced) that echoed painfully against the hard stone walls, easily the loudest thing they'd heard in hours.

He watched the colourful pieces drift to the ground and disappear amongst the grime.

"Better," muttered the faerie, her head still turned away. "Let's... get going, shall we?" She motioned at the ladder. "Better start climbing, kid."

With nothing blocking the way now Link could see up to the top of the ladder, where another passage began. While he couldn't see much from down here the walls up there looked a little lighter – hopefully that meant natural light, not just more torches. Walking up to the ladder he started to climb.

"You go ahead," said Tatl from somewhere behind him. "I'll catch up... no, don't stop, keep going..."

**-oOo-**

Soon afterwards the passage ended with one final set of steps and Link emerged from the darkness of the sewers into somewhere very, very different. Standing uncertainly in the doorway, he took one look at the room before him and immediately thought: _This__ is an observatory?_

The most prominent feature of the room was a wide spiral staircase that followed the circular walls of the observatory up and out of sight, painted in a rainbow array of psychedelic. These colours were reflected onto every exposed surface there was, eliminating every last shadow and giving the entire room an ethereal glow.

This area (which Link decided was the basement area since the spiral staircase came no further down that here) was filled with all sorts of odds and ends. On the far side of the room an uneven pile of crates filled the niche under the stairs. Sheets of paper were strewn lazily across the floor, covered in drawings of animals and faces. Here and there along the wall sat some expensive-looking pots, overflowing with an assortment of books, trinkets and half-eaten fruit.

"Ooh," said Tatl, drifting past Link dreamily. "This must be the Bombers' super secret hideout." She giggled. "You can't tell anyone, Deku boy, it's a secret... secret, secret, secret..."

Link's curiosity got the better of him – a couple of minutes looking around wouldn't do any harm, he reasoned – and he walked across the room to have a better view.

As he left the doorway he noticed a clock hanging on the wall next to him, sporting the same concentric-circle design from the faces of the Clock Tower. He glanced at it, wondering how the confusing combination of symbols and numbers could possibly have anything to do with the passing of night and day.

"Hey, look at this," said Tatl, directing his attention to a glass case full of assorted crystals and gemstones. She pressed her nose up against the glass appraisingly. "Hmm. How much do you reckon this stuff is worth?"

Sensing the beginnings of an illicit request, Link tore his eyes away from the gemstones. With slight surprise he noticed that there was a patch of earth in the ground where the floorboards had been sawn away. A handful of shoots stuck out of the dirt, making him think that somebody had tried to grow food down here. Seeing as there weren't any windows in sight, it was a wonder anything was growing.

A model globe perched precariously on an overturned crate, covered in contour diagrams that resembled the pockmarked craters of the moon. Link spun it experimentally, watching with morbid fascination as the contours that made up the face in the moon rotated into view. With a saccharine smile instead of the expected terrifying snarl, the globe looked much more harmless than the real thing.

With a 'hmph' Tatl placed herself in the middle of Link's field of vision. "Come on, Deku boy. _Now _you're just wasting time." She shot one last longing look at the gemstone case before nudging him towards the stairs. "You can snoop around the Bomber's hideout sometime when the world isn't about to end."

Carefully stepping around the odds and ends on the floor and ducking his head underneath a squawking chicken's oddly-placed birdcage, Link reached the spiral staircase and began the climb.

The steps circled the perimeter twice before flattening out into a landing. Stepping up into the ground level of the observatory, Link was immediately overcome with dizziness.

This area made the psychedelic stylings of the basement look like nothing. The walls which curved up all the way to the roof were deep purple and covered in slow-moving pinpricks of light that looked like a cloudless nighttime sky. Perhaps it was an optical illusion, but no matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise his eyes saw a depth to the wall designs; a third dimensional quality defying explanation and inducing nausea. The floor was covered in an equally disorienting geometric pattern, one which appeared again not far away on the only seat in the entire building. 'Dizzy' didn't even begin to cover it. Link had to close his eyes for a few seconds to stop himself from falling over.

He felt a sudden sting on his side.

"Ow!" said Tatl, ricocheting off Link's hide and narrowly missing the floor. "Ugh... you've _got _to be kidding me, those are _walls_? Whose smart idea was that!?"

Link nodded sympathetically, all the while scanning the room. Once he'd adjusted to the confusing combination of wall and floor tilings, he was able to register the raised circular platform in the centre of the room, decorated around the edges with pointy silver stars. Above it was a long grey cylinder covered in gears and markings that stretched down from the ceiling, starting large at the top and turning tiny towards the bottom. This strange metal tube appeared to be the centrepiece of the observatory.

"That's a star-watchy thing," said Tatl, confirming Link's guess. "People use it to watch stars." She nodded knowingly.

With a start Link realised they weren't alone in the room. An old man with a flowing mane of white hair was hunched over staring into the apparatus, his plain blue robes making him nearly invisible amidst the bright eyesores all around him. He hadn't turned to acknowledge the new arrivals yet, despite their noisy entrance – indeed, the man looked completely absorbed in his work.

Tatl followed Link's eyes. "Aha. That's gotta be the guy we want to talk to."

Clambering onto the platform, Link hesitantly approached the old man, taking care not to touch anything, while Tatl followed closely behind.

As the two drew near the astronomer turned to face them, the robes obscuring his legs making the motion look eerily effortless. In complete silence he regarded Link and Tatl (who had both come to a halt), looking them up and down slowly. His face was wrinkled and his nose red, and his eyes large and black. He had a wizened air to him, the kind that conveyed a lifetime of careful passion.

He stared at the two of them for so long Link felt sure the man must be mute. Then, after nearly a minute, he opened his mouth and spoke in a voice that was as warm as it was gentle. "Well, well... a strange-looking child has joined me today..." He smiled kindly at Link. "Are you a new friend of the Bombers?"

A few seconds passed before Link nodded.

"Hmm," said the astronomer. "Your manners seem much better than those of that mischievous sk-"

"Uh, _hello_?" said Tatl. "I'm right here."

The man blinked. "Why, of course. I mustn't forget the lovely faerie lady joining me as well." He tapped his nose. "You must forgive an old man the occasional slip. I'm afraid I can get very preoccupied by the tiniest of things at times."

"Apology accepted," said Tatl offhandedly, and promptly wandered off to 'ooh' and 'aah' at another gem display.

The old man smiled after her and returned his gaze to Link. "So... what brings you here? I'm afraid it's a little early in the day for stargazing..."

Link suppressed a sigh – the language barrier again. He squeaked, drawing Tatl's attention from across the room.

"What?" she snapped. "I'm busy!" Her hands were around a fist-sized blue jewel, testing its weight.

"I was asking your young friend what brings you two to the observatory on such a nice day," said the astronomer, casting a critical eye on Tatl. "Or did you come all this way just to rob me?"

Link chuckled quietly. He rather liked the old man.

"Uh," said Tatl. "No. Of course not. Nice place you've got here. No, we came here because... uh... why did we come here?..." She frowned, bit her lip, remembered. "That's right! The Great Faerie sent us. She said you could help us find Skull Kid."

"The Skull Kid?" said the astronomer with great interest. "Really? Now _that_ child is an ill-mannered troublemaker if ever I saw one. Whenever he came here with the other Bomber children he would throw things around and cause all sorts of havoc. Just the other day he said he'd break my instruments... hmm, so you want to find him? Let me see..."

Tugging lightly at his beard, he crossed to another side of the giant metal tube and began fiddling with cogs and wheels, causing the end of the tube to lower down towards Link's level.

"Tell me, child, have you ever used a telescope...? No? Not to worry, it's really very simple." Walking around to the front again he explained about how the tube was attached to an even larger tube on the roof of the building, and how the 'telescope' apparatus allowed one to see long distances. "Put one hand on the knob like this. See? Good, now close one eye and use the other to gaze into the hole."

For a few seconds Link only saw a bright white light at the other end. Then his eyes began to adjust and he realised that he was staring at a mountain range, though if these were mountains they were far whiter than any he'd ever seen before. He made a noise resembling a human 'aha'.

"Seeing something? Good. Now if you turn the knob like so..." A guiding hand placed itself over Link's and twisted.

The view shifted. Now he was looking left; now, right. Slowly but steadily Link familiarised himself with the controls, becoming a little more fluid with every attempt. Soon enough he was nearly able to move the telescope as quickly as his own head. Through it he could see the mountain range disappear behind clouds, and then, looking down, an open expanse of grass green fields.

"That's right," said the astronomer by Link's side. "Now as for the Skull Kid... I have seen him lately causing trouble around the clock tower in town. Look left."

The eyes of the telescope swept past a series of faded stone columns and came to rest upon a long curving wall standing in the middle of nowhere. Confused, Link used a third knob to widen the view. The wall was long and round and covered with old painted marks, and at one point on its circumference a mouth-like tunnel appeared to offer passage inside the wall. Behind the wall was a series of brick and thatch roofs, pressed up flush against the inner boundaries. It took him a moment to realise that for the very first time he was looking at Clock Town from the outside.

Retraining the telescope upwards he soon found what he was looking for – twice the height of the next tallest building in town, the clock tower... well, _towered_ above everything else in sight, one of its grand time-telling faces still clearly readable even this far out of town. From this distance Link felt a renewed appreciation for the powerful machinery that must power this behemoth of a timepiece. He looked the clock tower up and down, trying to spot any signs of life amongst all the stone and wood.

A lone figure stood atop the clock tower on a bulb-shaped platform situated even higher than the clock itself. Trepidation clutching at his stomach, Link slowly zoomed in on the figure.

It was the Skull Kid, jumping up and down with his arms thrown up to the heavens. And – as Link stared through the telescope at him – the Skull Kid stopped, twisted his head to the side, and slowly swivelled on the spot until he was _staring straight back_.

With a yelp Link jumped away from the telescope, nearly stumbling over on the smooth floor.

He took a few deep breaths. Standing here, away from the metal tube, was giving him a sense of perspective. The Skull Kid was miles away from the observatory. There was no danger.

Gingerly, he put his eye back up against the eyepiece.

The Skull Kid was still looking towards him, twisting his head from side to side in a freakish display of right angles. He did this for a few minutes, as if they were locked in a staring contest, before losing interest in Link and looking upwards again. He stretched out his arms clutching empty air and dragged them back in, as if he were trying to drag the moon closer.

Right on cue, the floor began to shake beneath Link's feet and the moon jolted ever-so-slightly closer to the ground. The tremors had been happening ever since Link had arrived in Termina but they were getting worse every time.

The Skull Kid still appeared to be doing the same hopping, waving, moon-summoning dance as before so Link refocused the lens of the telescope upon the snarling moon. He wondered how the Skull Kid had stumbled upon a mask so powerful it could pull a celestial body all the way into the middle of town.

As the rumbling ceased one of the moon's eyes glinted, looking for all the world like a speck of water, a half formed tear drop. Link was retraining the telescope towards the eye when the speck dropped down.

_The moon is crying?_, he thought for a bewildered moment.

Whatever the sparkling object was, it was hurtling towards the ground so fast that the air around it was burning. Following its trajectory, Link realised that it was coming down at an angle, not towards Clock Town after all, but towards the field, no, somewhere behind the observatory, no, it was _coming right for him_-

An ear-splitting _bang!_ that shook the walls of the observatory, causing furniture to overturn and books to topple from shelves. This time Link did fall over, but he was back on his feet before the shock wave had fully passed.

"What was _that_!?" said Tatl, jumping onto Link's head defensively.

The astronomer was calmly still standing where Link last saw him. "It sounds as if we've had a close brush with the celestial sphere. Perhaps another moon's tear has fallen nearby."

"A moon what?" said Tatl, eyes darting mouse-like to and fro.

"Lunar rocks," replied the astronomer. "They've been blazing from the surface of the moon lately, ever since it first started... descending. They fall from what looks to be the moon's eye, so..." - he shrugged - "moon's tears. They are very rare stones, valued by many in town. If one has fallen it might be within the observatory boundaries. Go through that door on your left and take a look outside. It might be your lucky day."

Nodding, Link started towards the door, which blended in so well with the psychedelic walls that he hadn't noticed it until that moment.

Tatl's jaw dropped. "Lucky?" she said. "_Lucky_? The moon's falling and we're all about to die and I'm supposed to feel good about it because I got some hunk of rock? Well pardon me if-"

Link stepped outside and – on the spur of the moment – shut the door behind him. A few minutes free of nagging weren't going to kill him.

There was a tall iron fence going all the way around the observatory. On this side of the fence there were copious amounts of dead grass (trampled underfoot one too many times), and, barely ten feet from where Link stood, a smoking crater.

Well, if that wasn't where the tear had landed... sticking a hand into the hole, he pulled out a clear blue gem in the shape of a tear as big as his hand but as light as a faerie. It was also very hot, and while he hadn't sustained any lasting injuries in this body at all, the idea of bursting into flames was not a very attractive one. As soon as he had the moon's tear out of the hole, he dropped it on the ground nearby and left it to cool.

And: with nothing else to do as he waited, he walked to the tall fence and put his nose between the bars. It was a different world outside the fence. None of the crowded streets and narrow alleyways that had stifled him for the last few days; no, this was open countryside, grass and trees and birds and every cliché he'd ever heard of. It was a part of the world he would never get to explore once the moon landed. There were so many things he wouldn't be able to see or do once the moon landed. And instead of feeling forlorn or afraid, he looked out there and wondered how long the world had left.

He looked out there and wondered how long the world had left.

* * *

**A/N:** Can anyone say 'rushed final paragraph'? :P

Reviews are always welcomed with open arms. Though maybe not if they're flames. (I haven't gotten any flames for this yet. You could be the first!) I'd be interested to know what y'all made of ze part before they did teh arrivngzors at the observatory where things are observed. Also, I'm dead tired and wrote the last half-thousand words whilst being dead tired. My guess is it shows. Also, I'm afraid to check for myself... does the word 'psychedelic' appear a ridiculous number of times? The adjective-creating lobe of my brain fried itself several sentences into this chapter and I've been dragging it along ever since. Also, I'm now just typing for the sake of typing.

(Btw, those of you who said 'the number of Skulltulas he's killed' were soooo close...)

Okay, I'm about to faint, so good night.


	11. Exodus of Clock Town

**INSOMNIA**_**  
**_**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

**The Astral Observatory**

"So you saw the Skull Kid on top of the Clock Tower?"

The astronomer stood with one hand resting on the side of the telescope, brow furrowed and lips thin with concentration. Though his eyes were on Link they seemed to be boring straight through him, as if by staring hard enough his gaze could pass through the floorboards and deep into the heart of the world in search of some hidden meaning.

"Yes, you must have," the astronomer said, answering his own question. "Heavens know I've seen the fiend there many times, only ever in the corner of my eye, mind you, but if you have seen him too then it must be true. And yet... how did that fiendish child get on top of the tower? There is only one way up there, through the Old Door that only opens once a year... I simply cannot explain it, no more than I can explain any of the impossible things I have seen with my own eyes these past few weeks."

"Impossible?" mumbled Tatl. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, mesmerised by the shiny blue moon's tear Link had found outside.

"Yes, impossible!" said the astronomer. With a sudden flurry of movement he cast the telescope to the side, took three long strides across the room and began leafing through a leather-bound journal. "A man who spends his days gazing at the cosmos notices when the moon changes course. I saw the first signs a few weeks back but by now anybody can see its descent. But any good astronomer knows the celestial bodies should not be able to fall nearly this far! To me it seems as if the moon is being pulled in by some... some unknown force."

_By the Skull Kid?_, wondered Link. The strange dance he'd seen the imp perform atop the Clock Tower could easily have been an occult ritual using the power of the Mask to pull the moon down to the ground.

The astronomer stopped flipping through the journal, pressing a bony index finger against one particular page. "Other things have been happening too. Aha... in here I've recorded all the strange weather patterns that have revealed themselves to me through the telescope. Corrosive rain clouds over the southern marshlands. The glaciation in the northern mountains despite the warm weather everywhere else. Mysterious typhoons off the western coast that move with a mind of their own. The unscheduled migration of the scavenger birds to the eastern no man's land... all of these things were so sudden. They started the same time the moon began to fall."

"So the moon's causing funny weather," said Tatl, testing the weight of the gem. "Big deal. If I were you I'd be a bit less worried about how hot or cold it is and bit more worried about getting crushed by that big hunk of rock."

"Perhaps that is our destiny," replied the old man. "Why worry? If the moon comes, it comes, and there is no sense wasting what little time we have left in despair."

"Yeah, right," muttered Tatl. "You mean, just put on a big smile and pretend it's all going away?"

"Yes, yes, that is _exactly_ what I mean! I have seen far too many people live empty, hollow lives simply because they cannot bring themselves to hope for the future. Then the rationalise it: they say they don't know who to trust, or how to be happy; they can't tell the difference between right or wrong or even say for certain who they are. If every person in Termina – no, every person in the whole wide world – would just stop lamenting over nothing and start..."

Tatl cut in. "Come _on_," she said dismissively, "it's a warm fuzzy idea, I'll give you that, but it's nothing more than that. Holding hands and singing songs doesn't get a hell of a lot done. Me and this kid," - she poked Link in the foot - "are going to go stop the Skull Kid from pulling the moon done. That's not sitting around hoping for something. That's _doing_ something. See the difference?"

"Taking action is a kind of hope in itself," said the astronomer, quietly closing his book. "Believe what you will, but don't forget that."

"Sounds like _someone_ doesn't know how to lose an argument gracefully," muttered Tatl. She lifted off from the ground, hovering between Link and the astronomer. "Now, how do I get this little Deku boy here on top of that tower to beat some sense into Skull Kid?"

"There's only one way up there," said the astronomer gravely, "the Old Door that opens only once a year for the start of the Festival of Time. Have either of you been to the Festival before?"

"Seen it from a distance," shrugged Tatl, while Link shook his head.

"I see," said the astronomer, looking at Link. "Then you must be a foreigner...? Well, by now you have probably noticed the important role time plays in the daily lives of people hereabouts. The fact that there _is_ a monumental clock tower visible from the farthest reaches should speak volumes in itself. Every child born in this land learns how to read the clocks from an early age, and so they begin to understand the structure of day and night, the undying rhythm of seconds and minutes we schedule our lives by... that is what the Festival of Time is about. It is the people of Termina paying homage to time and its perfect cycles."

"Cycles?" Tatl stifled a yawn. "You mean circles?"

"No, I mean cycles... the cycle of day and night, of waxing and waning moon, of winter and spring... repeating themselves again and again with no beginning and no end... but we digress. You want to know about the Festival. Once a year at the height of spring comes the Festival of Time. The people of Clock Town build a festival tower in the middle of town square, and at the stroke of midnight the Old Door opens – it is a quarter way up the clock tower, so it can only be reached by a bridge from the festival tower – and people from all over Termina walk across the gap and climb to the roof.

"I used to go every year. From the roof of the tower, it was like you were on top of the world... you could see so far in every direction... then there was the ceremony to call the gods and offer them our thanks for the world we stood on..."

Link felt Tatl gently push him away from the astronomer. "Really interesting story you've got there," she was saying, "but Deku boy and I? We're in a rush. The Festival's supposed to be tonight, right? So we're going to go make sure we're ready when that door opens."

The astronomer smiled grimly. "Then good luck. I cannot say what waits for you on that roof, but whatever it is I hope you succeed in turning back the moon."

His eyes met Link's and they nodded to each other.

"Uh-huh," said Tatl. "Come on, let's go..."

She and Link turned and started walking. They were at the head of the stairs when the astronomer called out behind them.

"Wait! You forgot something!"

"We didn't..." began Tatl, then stopped dead as she saw what the astronomer was holding: the big tear-shaped gem that had landed outside a few minutes ago.

"You found it," the old man said to Link, pressing it into his hand. "It's yours."

Tatl's jaw dropped. "I... wow. You. Are. The most awesome old dude I have _ever _met!" She collided with the astronomer's left cheekbone in a rough approximation of a hug.

The old man chuckled and turned away. "If we're all still alive come tomorrow, drop by some time. Now hurry along."

**-oOo-**

**The Eastern Thoroughfare  
Clock Town**

The return trip through the sewers went a lot smoother than the first one now that they knew what to expect. Barely half an hour later they reached the last bending tunnel and soon after emerged into the sunlight, where the yellow-capped Bomber kid was still standing guard.

"Oh, you're back," he said brightly, as Link and Tatl dusted themselves off and squeezed out into the main road area. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Yeah," said Tatl quickly. "Hey, do you know any other ways of getting onto top of the clock tower? Secret passages or whatever?"

The boy bit his lip. "Beside the big festival tower? I dunno... never heard of any secret entrances, but if there was one Jim would know about it. You could ask him!"

"Never mind," said Tatl. "I didn't think there was one anyway."

Link blinked, adjusting to the sunlight. It was already well into the afternoon, and the streets were even more crowded than he remembered seeing before. Lots of people were out and about, all shuffling slowly in the same direction, tightly clutching on to bags and parcels like they contained something valuable. (Link's hand unconsciously went to the lump in his cap where Tatl'd made him put the moon's tear.) But what were all these people doing? They certainly weren't shopping; a lot of the store fronts down the thoroughfare had closed early.

Puzzled, he pointed this out to Tatl.

"Weird," she said. "Hey, Bomber kid! Whatever your name is. What are all these people doing? Where are they going?"

"You didn't hear?" said the boy. "Where have you been all day?"

Tatl pointed towards the hole in the wall. "Down... there..."

"Oh. Right. Well, uh, a couple of hours ago the mayor made a big announcement. A state of emergency, they're calling it. Everyone's supposed to evoke... evocate... to pack up and leave town, as quick as they can."

"They're _what_?" She shook her head, as if she hadn't heard correctly. "Everyone's just running away?"

The faerie sounded surprised, but Link thought it made sense given the impending danger. He recalled the scene he'd witnessed in the Mayor's office two days prior, where the carnival committee and the town guard had argued over whether the town should be evacuated. If anything, it was a surprise it had taken two whole days for the Mayor to reach a decision.

A stout woman in a beige apron went past along with four or five dirt-covered children. Struggling under the load of several suitcases, she barked oft-ignored orders at the children, who seemed inclined to treat the whole affair as one big game, ducking in and out among the slow moving exodus of people with occasional cries of "You're it!" "Am not!" "Are too!" Each time the children bumped into another luggage-hefting adult, the mother made an apologetic grimace that showed the worry lines on her face all too clearly.

"Well, not _running _away," said the Bomber boy. "I mean, it's more like walking, hehe." He caught the look on Tatl's face. "Um, right. So people are allowed to stay if they want to, but the town guards are running around saying to people 'you really don't want to stay', that sort of thing. Most people are running away, but not everyone."

"And why are you still here?"

The boy puffed out his chest (or as close to it as someone who looked about six could manage). "I got a visit from Jim himself just an hour ago. He said to stay where I was, 'coz the Bombers weren't running away." He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "I hear Jim's got a plan, you know. To stop the moon from landing on us."

"I'll believe _that _when I see it," scoffed Tatl.

The boy raised a hand in salute and moved back to the patch of brick wall that was his post.

Tatl raised an eyebrow in Link's direction. "Well? You want to head over to the Clock Tower? Or are you just going to stare at the people all day?"

Pause.

"Are you even listening to me?"

Not satisfied she had his attention, she hovered over and poked Link in the eye.

Pain shooting through him like an electric jolt, Link acted on instinct, swatting in Tatl's direction. Deku scrub or not, his reflexes were as sharp as ever and before his brain fully registered what happened he was holding a very surprised faerie in his left hand.

Tatl freaked. "Wingshreds!" she squealed, trying to wriggle out of his fingers. "How did... what the hell... let go let go!" She tried in vain to bite him on the fingers. "You let me go right now!"

Adrenaline surging unhelpfully through his veins, Link forced himself to calm down. Tatl was not one of Ganon's burn-rape-pillagers. She was a nuisance, all right, but not a threat. Breathing deeply, he felt his heartbeat slow.

"You big ugly De-" Tatl faltered, apparently realising that this approach wasn't working. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry I poked you in the eye or whatever. Just _put me down_!"

Link waited a few more seconds to make sure the point had gotten across, then – slowly, deliberately – lowered his hand to the ground and relaxed his grip. Shooting him an indignant look, Tatl pushed her way out and took to the air.

"That... that was completely uncalled for," she said haughtily, flicking an imaginary speck of dust from her torso. "I don't know where you learned to do that, but you can't use your powers for evil like that. It's just not on."

Since high-pitched squeaking would have ruined the mood somewhat, Link contented himself with staring bemusedly at the flustered faerie.

"Okay, okay, ha ha, you win," said Tatl, rolling her eyes. "Can we head for the town square now? I don't know about you, but all these people leaving town is making me think they won't finish the festival tower on time."

It took a few seconds for her words to sink in. No festival tower meant (for all he'd been told) no way up to the clock tower roof, which meant bad, bad things. Without pause he pushed into the slowly shuffling crowd and started south.

"Atta boy," said Tatl, hopping on his head. "Off we go!"

On their way there they passed by the eastern town gate where the departing people reached a bottleneck. The people closest to the gate were not nearly as orderly as those further away; with freedom just a short walk away and the claustrophobic effect of the crowds and the snarling moon combined, many people were pushing and shoving their neighbours. Barbed remarks were thrown. The town guards directed the human traffic carefully, calmly, coldly, and stepped in to intervene whenever punches started being thrown.

The atmosphere was gloomy. Most people kept their eyes fixed on their shoelaces, and every child who began a question with "Ma, Ma, is the moon gonna..." was quickly "hush now"-ed into silence. People avoided eye contact with each other whenever possible. It was like everyone was alone in the crowd of hundreds.

"Let's get out of here," whispered Tatl. "I don't like this. Feels like a riot could start at any moment."

Link agreed with her. Pressing against the flow of the crowd, he tried to get out of there as quickly and quietly as he could.

A middle-aged couple had burst into tears in each others' arms. The crowd parted coolly around them, paying them scant attention.

An elderly woman stared vacantly into the distance as a tiny girl with chestnut pigtails hopped and danced around her, loudly singing nursery rhymes to cheer her grandmother up.

Nearby but out of earshot, two women were arguing loudly enough to draw glances from everyone nearby. One of them sounded bitter and tired. "We're leaving and that's final."

"No, no!" The other woman was in hysterics. "We can't go! We have to wait! I have to wait! He'll come back!"

Woman number one heaved a sigh of disapproval. "How many times do I need to tell you? He's not coming back! He's had a whole month to come back."

"No, he'll come back-"

"He's probably already found another girl. Someone with a business head, probably, or some filthy rich lady with serious _money_." There was enough venom in that last word to slay a dozen dragons. "How happy could you possibly be anyway? This is a man who ran off right before your wedding! It would make your life unhappy... just like your mother's."

"Don't use _your_ sorry decisions against me! He's different. He said he'd come back! He said so right in his letter! He's coming back and-"

"Coming back to what?" the other snapped. "Won't this town be crushed beneath the moon tomorrow morning?"

"Mother... I can't... please don't..."

"Come on. People are staring. Pick up that bag. We're leaving."

"No!"

The mother stomped loudly. "We're _leaving_!"

"_No_!"

The crowd parted and Link found himself thrown off balance by the sudden movement. He caught a glimpse of a tall red skirt striding past resolutely.

For a split second Link saw the other woman, the mother, not far from where he stood. Straining under the weight of the bags her face was red. There were tears in her eyes for the daughter she'd just seen going to her death. Defiantly, she straightened her back and the streets fell silent for a single moment as she called out.

"He's not coming, Anju! He never was!"

The crowd swallowed her up and Link lost sight of her.

"Keep walking, Deku boy," whispered Tatl urgently into his ear. "Stay still too long and the crowd will carry us away."

Keep walking.

**-oOo-**

**Clock Town Square**

The first thing Link had seen on arrival in Clock Town were the builders hard at work on the festival tower in the town square. The few times he'd returned to this spot he'd seen them continuing their work, through day and night and rain and shine. To his relief they were still here now despite all the people abandoning their homes to seek shelter.

"Tradition says we build this tower every year," the head carpenter explained when Link and Tatl inquired. "You don't stop upholding that tradition just because of one little rock in the sky. Moon falling, my hat..."

The other three builders weren't so confident. They kept to their work, hauling long planks of wood to and fro and studiously nailing them together, but they were clearly agitated and frequently glanced at the moon as if it might swoop down and crush them any moment now. The head carpenter made a show of keeping them in check but it looked like their will to stick to 'tradition' was fraying fast.

Tatl was coming to the same conclusion. "Those pansies aren't going to last all day. They'd better have that tower up soon."

Unable to offer any help, they decided to find somewhere to sit.

Link wandered off to the side, spotting a few benches lined against the walls. He brushed his hand against them idly, not feeling like sitting just yet, and wandered a little further along the edge of the square.

He spied a shallow water feature and hummed in recognition. He'd fallen in there a few nights ago during a scuffle with an overexcited puppy. The puppy wasn't here; somebody must have rescued it in their rush to leave. So long ago... but no, not really – he'd only been in Termina for a few days, hadn't he? It seemed like forever since the Skull Kid had ambushed him in those faraway woods.

Lost in thought, he took a step towards the water, intending to stare at his reflection in its calm surface.

A loud voice from above interrupted his thoughts. "Wait! Wait!!"

He looked up to see a Deku scrub with bulky bags in each hand fly in from overhead, kept afloat by a large-petalled flower on his head that spun rapidly like a propeller (a trick Link remembered learning himself back when he'd first been cursed into this shape). In all the time since Link had been in Termina, he hadn't seen a single Deku scrub aside from his own forlorn reflection, and he was struck by how much bigger than him the newcomer was.

"Hang on!" Propeller slowing, the larger Deku descended towards the town square, settling on a large yellow flower near the wall that Link had apparently gotten too close to. "This is my private property," he humphed. "Don't try using it when you're not around!" He glared furiously.

Link held his hands up placatingly even as Tatl buzzed forward, eyes narrowed.

"_Your_ private property?" she said. "Says who?"

Link shot Tatl a warning look – no point getting into an argument, there were plenty of other spots to sit – but either she didn't see him or she was deliberately ignoring him. Definitely the latter.

"Oh, squatters, are you?" The big Deku frowned, though it was hard to take anyone seriously with a moustache made of leaves. "Well, if you insist..." He reached into one of his bags and pulled out an official-looking document. "Here! A title deed, signed by the Mayor himself, mind you, granting its bearer complete rights to this piece of land!" He traced a finger around his flower, seemingly unaware of how tiny the circle was.

"Huh," said Tatl, unimpressed. "What kind of person pays for such a worthless bit of land? There's nothing here but one of your Deku flowers!"

"I'll have you know this is the best Deku flower in Clock Town!" replied the Deku. "Just ask anyone! What other flower in this area launches gets you over the town walls when you're in a hurry? None, that's what! I don't want to be harassed by those pesky guards at the gate every single time I go in or out of town... speaking of which," - he raised his voice - "Guards! Guards! I'm being harassed by a couple of young hooligans!"

He put his hands on his hips, triumphantly staring down at Link and Tatl, until it became clear half a minute later that the town guards were nowhere in sight.

"Never there when you need them," he grumbled. "And why is this place so deserted? Some kind of holiday?"

"Town's been evacuated." Tatl rolled her eyes. "You know, the moon and all."

"The _moon_? Ha! What danger is that? Lock your doors and windows and it can't hurt you, can it?"

"Actually..."

"Oh, no you don't. You're not scaring me." He levelled a shaking finger in Tatl's direction, and stared acidly at Link. "I know your type. You kids get your kicks out of causing a panic, don't you? Well, it won't work on me! I will be perfectly safe right here. Now where have those guards gotten to? Guards! _Guards_! Arrest these hooligans!"

The man was practically spitting. Link looked into his eyes and caught a glimpse of madness. Alarmed, he sent Tatl another warning hand gesture: _get away_.

She paid him no mind, preferring to continue the shouting match. "So what, you're going to hide inside that flimsy little flower you call a... I don't know, a home or something? Yeah, I'm sure that'll give you _loads_ of protection from the moon when it lands. I bet that thing weighs more than this whole town, what makes you so special?"

"I will be perfectly safe," repeated the Deku with frightening certainty.

Tatl backed away, whispering into Link's ear, "This guy's loco. Let's go."

Link nodded slowly, taking a few steps backwards before turning and walking briskly away with the yellow faerie by his side. The Deku scrub didn't seem to notice, and kept calling into the abandoned town square, wondering where the guards were.

They settled down on the laundry pool steps, where they had a clear view of both festival tower and clock tower. One of the builders raised an eyebrow in their direction but otherwise their presence went acknowledged, and so Link and Tatl sat and waited.

**-oOo-**

Over the next few hours the festival tower slowly rose. Supporting beams and wooden panelling were affixed to it; the carpenters scurried to and fro as their boss snapped at them to go faster, faster; more time passed and the tower stretched higher and higher.

At some point during this, Link spotted the Old Door the astronomer had spoken of: nestled under the closest face of the Clock Tower was a rectangle of wood, tiny in comparison to the heaving, ticking clock above. The markings on the wooden door had faded from centuries of weather, but they resembled the sun-and-moon design on the tower's time telling faces.

In his mind's eye he traced an imaginary line from one tower to another, and came to a worrying conclusion. The festival tower the builders were struggling to erect was not nearly tall enough to reach the Door across the plaza. At the rate they were going, it still mightn't be by midnight.

Shortly before sunset the first carpenter gave up. Carrying a bundle of wooden boards on his shoulder, he stopped and looked up into the face of the moon. He stood there, frozen, for a few minutes before dropping his load to the ground where it clattered angrily. Ignoring the shouts of his superior, he walked away from the tower, out of the town square, and through the unmanned town gate to parts unknown.

Throughout all this he spoke not a single word.

With one of their number gone, the builders seemed to lose heart. Despite the head builder's best efforts to keep them motivated, their backs turned hunched and their pace slow. They were still working, but to look at them one knew they had already given up inside.

"Oh, no," murmured Tatl, burying herself deeper into Link's shoulder. She muttered incoherently. Link thought he heard her brother's name ("Tael...") somewhere in there.

The sound of footsteps made Link look to his left.

"Mister Deku. Tatl."

Jim looked as happy as Link had ever seen him. The leader of the Bombers' Secret Society of Justice, a surprisingly intimidating person when he wanted to be, was strolling towards them relaxedly.

Automatically raising a hand in greeting, Link shot Jim a quizzical look.

"Lovely day for it, huh?" grinned Jim, wincing as the ground rumbled beneath their feet and the moon dropped a fraction closer. "Didn't think I'd see you two here of all places. Anyone with a speck of common sense was gone hours ago."

"We were going to stop him," said Tatl in a hollow voice, her eyes far away. "We found Skull Kid. We were going to go up there and stop him."

Jim nodded in sympathy. "That's too bad. Guess there hasn't been much luck goin' round lately." He sat down next to them, letting his legs dangle. He didn't say anything else.

It was another few minutes before Tatl broke the silence.

"So..." she said. "Why are you still here? Anyone with a speck of common sense..." She managed a smile.

Jim exhaled. "Yeah, well, the Bombers have gotta do what they gotta do, don't they?" He gestured at the moon. "We help people when they're in trouble, and with that big moon falling on us and all, it'd be a real waste if we didn't at least try to do something about it."

"Do something?" said Tatl. "Do what?"

"We're... oh, you'll see," said Jim. "Just an idea I had. It might make things better, it might not. Either way it's gonna be real cool. Wait and see."

"Come on, just tell me," said Tatl. "You're not going to keep us guessing all afternoon, are you?"

"Afternoon?" said Jim, turning around to watch the last crescent of sun descend behind the town walls. "What afternoon?"

**CYCLE 0: CLAUSTROPHOBIA  
NIGHT of the THIRD DAY**

The builders kept working after sundown, stopping only to light the torches around the square. They were fatigued, and it showed as their pace slowed to a crawl and their foreman stopped trying to shout them awake.

Jim had sandwiches with him (lettuce, tomato and a meat Link didn't recognise) which he kindly shared with the two. It had been a few days since Link had eaten anything, since Deku scrubs could survive on just water and sunlight, and he relished every last morsel.

The sky was dark now, and the moon's eyes seemed to glow. The rumbling quakes grew more frequent, the deadly rock in the sky crept closer, and Link and Tatl stayed where they were, willing the builders to go faster.

"Almost time," said Jim a while later. He was looking at the giant clock face, rubbing his chin with grown-up dignity. "Should be any moment now."

"What should?" Tatl said automatically, having long given up on getting any answers from him.

"Aha!" Jim pointed to the other side of the town square, where the other Bombers were filing through in a neat line, as always indistinguishable beyond the numbers on their identical white shirts. "Hey, Bombers! Over here!"

The four younger Bombers assembled themselves in a neat line in front of Link, Tatl and Jim.

"Good night, Jim!" called number three.

"No, it's good evening," whispered number five. "It's not dark enough to be night."

"Is too! The sun set ages ago!"

"Is not!"

"Hey, it's that Deku scrub!" said number two.

"Hey, mister Deku!" chorused the Bombers.

"Isn't that such a cool cap?" one of them stage whispered.

"_Shush_!" said Jim, and they instantly clapped their mouths shut. He hopped down from his perch, looking at each of his underlings one by one. "Is it all ready?"

They all nodded.

"Great!" said Jim, immediately turning around to climb back up next to Link. "Everyone get a seat. Just sit back and enjoy the fireworks!"

Tatl responded predictably. "Fireworks? It's the end of the world and you're _celebrating_ with _fireworks_?"

Jim rolled his eyes. "You're such a sceptic." He lowered his voice. "Hey, Tatl, Deku scrub. Ever wonder why our secret justice society is called 'the Bombers'?"

Tatl rolled her eyes as well. "Why?"

"Dunno," said Jim, "but I couldn't pass the opportunity." He glanced at the clock tower. "Couple more seconds."

Tatl blinked. "Wait, when you say bomb-"

Loud _woosh_es sounded from every direction. Flashes of light illuminated the surrounding buildings like it was daytime. Unsure where to look, Link looked up.

From buildings all over Clock Town, streaks of bright light shot up through the darkened sky, towards the grimacing face of the moon. They traced perfectly straight lines of sparkling colour, right until they hit the moon.

First, they saw the fireworks go off. Explosions of every colour of the rainbow and more dotted the surface of the moon. Link saw chunks of rock fly off at the points of impact, sailing far and wide towards the ground below.

"What the hell?" said Tatl. She turned to Jim. "What are-"

Second, they heard the fireworks go off. The tearing, wrenching noise was so loud it drove all thoughts out of Link's mind for the next four or five seconds. When he'd stopped seeing stars he noticed the Bombers had all stuck their fingers in their ears in advance. They could have warned him.

"_What the hell_?" screeched Tatl, barely audible above the echoing from the town walls. "You can't-"

Third, they felt the fireworks go off. The moon was close enough and the explosives potent enough that the shock wave nearly knocked Link off his seat. Tatl, who was airborne at the time, went sailing straight into Link's gut, knocking the wind out of him.

The builders were running around in confusion, pointing at the moon as if they couldn't believe what they were seeing. They didn't notice the Bombers all sitting together with serene smiles like a day at the beach, which was probably just as well because the head carpenter looked as if he could start throwing things.

"Hey, it worked!" said Jim, exchanging high fives with the younger Bombers.

"Worked?" said Tatl. "_Worked_!? You just scared the living daylights out of me! And you haven't even slowed the moon down!"

"We're not trying to slow it down," said Jim calmly as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "We're trying to make it smaller. Every bit of rock we knock off the moon is a little bit less harm it'll do when it lands."

Link looked up at the moon, trying to see if it was really that much smaller. All he saw was more craters.

"Don't worry," said Jim, following his gaze, "there's a lot more where that came from."

Going by the moon's appearance, Jim's hare-brained idea had about zero chance of doing anything. Being crushed by a billion tons of rock was scarcely better than being crushed by a billion and one.

Tatl grimaced. "A lot more. Wonderful. And where did you even get all those..."

"...explosives?" said Jim. "Oh, we picked them up last night while the guards were busy chasing you two around. Thanks for that, by the way. It's not like anyone was going to miss them, not after that huge evacuation."

"You," said Tatl flatly, "are the biggest idiot I've ever met. It's never going to work. Warn me when the next one goes off."

Jim checked the time. "Couple of seconds," he said.

"...great."

The fireworks went off at erratic intervals over the next few hours. Each time the bright lights and loud noises flared up around the moon's surfaces, Jim nodded importantly to himself as if it was making an iota of difference. The younger ones cheered as well, looking for all the world like they hadn't grasped the enormity of the impending danger.

After the last ones had gone off, Jim studied the moon and announced the exercise a success.

"Dinssake," said Tatl loudly. "You could have been helping put up the festival tower this whole time, instead of wasting it on that... whatever that was."

While the Bombers looked far too young to be carpenter material, Link did feel a little cheated. He'd been hoping for a solution to the problem, not just Jim's vague assurances that things were a little less bad. If the moon had changed in size it was impossible to tell, so close was it to the ground now.

Once the Bombers had filed out of the town square to parts unknown, two of the remaining labourers put down their tools and stormed out of the town square, muttering about how the tower was a 'colossal waste of time'.

The head builder stood staring after them, shouting angrily at their receding figures. "Cowards! All of you! Not a one of you stayed!" He kept shouting for several minutes until they were clearly out of earshot, and wheeled around to direct his anger to the moon.

"Well?" he shouted. "What do you want with me? Here to ruin everything, are you?" He waved a large fist at the unresponsive rock in the sky, so close one could swear one could touch it. "If you're gonna fall, then fall already!" He thumped himself on the chest. "Go on! I dare you!"

He stood there in place for a long, long time.

The bells of the clock tower started ringing, signalling midnight. At this the foreman deflated. He looked at the festival tower, barely two-thirds of the necessary height, and seemed to shrink along with it. With one forlorn glance at his unfinished handiwork, he turned and left the town square, eyes on the ground like the thousands who had departed from town earlier that day.

When he was gone, and Link and Tatl were alone in the square, Tatl nodded grimly.

"That's it," she said. "We're screwed. You could try climbing up the side if you like, but..." She laughed bitterly. "Nah. What a way to go out, huh?"

And the clock tolled midnight.

* * *

**A/N:** Sorry for the really long chapter. This was originally going to be two chapters but I couldn't find an appropriate place to split them up. Plus I was having fun writing the middle bits. No such thing as too much fun... :P

Thanks for reading as always. Next chapter: Tiki stalls for time! The chapter after: the end of the world!


	12. Interlude: The Final Six Hours

**The FINAL SIX HOURS**  
an interlude  
**based on _The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask_**

**The building foreman**

Mutoh was not a man given to displays of emotion. The last time he'd cried was back when he was thirteen and he'd fallen and twisted his ankle running down steps. Even then the tears running down his face had shamed him more than the accident itself. Tonight, for the first time in decades, Mutoh felt like crying again.

Everything was going wrong. The festival tower would not be finished. The carnival was not going to happen. The snivelling cowards who 'worked' for him had turned tail and fled town. Now he was standing alone in the middle of the town square, which was all but devoid of life – a stray cat dashing between the shadows, a Deku scrubling staring zombie-like at the sky – with his back to the unfinished tower and his head thrown up to the cruel moon.

"If you're gonna fall, then fall already!" he shouted, waving an empty fist in the air.

Anger. Be angry at the moon, at the world. That was important. If he stopped being angry then despair would be all that was left and the tears would come.

"Go on! Kill me!" Even as the words left his mouth they turned hollow in the cool night breeze. "I dare you!" he began.

His words echoed down the silent streets, and an involuntary shiver went down his spine at the impossible quiet. There were no dogs barking mindlessly at the sound of his voice, no guards yelling at him to stop shouting like a madman in public, no angry sleepers woken by his cries. Was he really the only human being left in this godforsaken town?

The clock tower began to toll midnight in sonorous, ringing tones. The ground trembled, the moon inched closer, and the last cat in all of Clock Town scampered past, yowling in fear.

Mutoh looked into the moon's eyes and realised how small he was.

With one last look at the festival tower – forever incomplete – he turned and walked to the southern gate. Instinct told him to run as fast as he could. Reason told him there was no point running. Pride told him to hold his head high and walk out, even if his only audience was the sad little Deku scrub on the laundry steps. In the end he slumped out of town, head hung low, shoulders hunched and eyes on the ground.

Outside Clock Town the world was quiet too. The beasts and birds were gone, no doubt having fled as judgement neared. In the distance, he saw faint clusters of torchlight: the people of Termina attempting their own migration. The clouds that covered the sky were the colour of embers.

Without thinking twice Mutoh stepped out into the grass, raising his arms to either side, exploring the eerie sensation of being alone in the world. He closed his eyes, feeling the subtle wind play across his face, smelling the grassy fragrance of the field, listening to the sound of his own footsteps in a sea of silence.

Someone else's footsteps crunched across the grass. Mutoh's eyes snapped open, and looking to his side he saw a thin silhouette approaching in the distance. It waved in his direction.

"Who...?" he muttered.

As the figure drew closer Mutoh saw the glint of moonlight on metal, the spear clutched religiously in one hand. One of the town guards, then. The figure drew closer and Mutoh frowned. Not just any guard...

"Didn't expect to see you here on the outside, Mutoh," said Captain Viscen, his eyes obscured beneath the guard of his helmet. "Thought you'd be hanging on 'til the last."

The last time the two had talked had been in the Mayor's office, where they'd spent days butting heads with each other over whether a town evacuation was necessary. Mutoh's initial anger at seeing the town guard captain gave way to guilt as he realised he'd been wrong.

"I've been a damned idiot," he blurted before he could stop himself. "I told them not to panic. Don't panic! Dear gods..."

Viscen stared at him long and hard before speaking. "So you've finally opened your eyes to it?" His voice didn't sound cold like Mutoh had been expecting. It just sounded tired.

"Opened my... yeah. I was wrong. I see that now." Something about the look on the other's face made Mutoh's blood start to boil. "Fine. Fine! You were right! Happy now?"

The captain raised a warning hand. "I didn't _want_ this to happen; just because you couldn't... no... no, don't." He shook his head and sighed. "I'm not spending the last few hours of my life arguing."

Mutoh started to speak and then the words 'last few hours' sunk in. His eyes went unwillingly to the moon. "That little time...?"

Viscen smiled grimly. "Life is unfair sometimes. Well... most of the time."

Mutoh forced a small laugh. "That it is, Captain."

"Please. Call me Viscen. It's not like ranks and titles are going to save us."

"Sure, why not?"

In silence the two men looked up at the falling sky.

"Hey, Viscen?" said Mutoh.

The other man shifted from one foot to the other. "Yes?"

"Why are you still here? I thought you'd left the moment the evacuation was called. You were the one telling everyone how they had to get out. What happened?"

A few minutes passed before Viscen replied.

"I was helping the last few people through the gates," he began. "There weren't any horses left by then, my men had taken most of them when they went. I was helping the last few people to leave town, pointing them in the direction of the highland caves and the Romani ranch. I told them to run as fast as they could. I watched them go, and I was going to follow them away from this forsaken place, too..."

"But then?" said Mutoh.

"But then I took one last look at Clock Town. Memory's sake, you know... I was born here, spent most of my life protecting the place... and I don't know. I just thought, is it worth it? Is it worth running? Even those people who are far away and lucky enough to survive the impact... what then? What would you do if you woke up tomorrow morning and," - he choked slightly - "and you were the last man on Termina?"

"Not worth it..." echoed Mutoh quietly.

"Exactly," said Viscen, his voice rising as if just hearing someone agree with him was invigorating his spirit. "Not worth it. I thought... I'm _thinking_, I might as well be here for it. Somewhere I know, somewhere I've lived my whole life, not out in the middle of nowhere running away from... well, from something that can't be run from, know what I mean?"

Mutoh nodded enthusiastically. "I completely get you. You don't want to be a coward. You want to stare death in the face."

"Yes, exactly. Exactly. I like that – 'stare death in the face'. That's exactly what I'm doing. I'm going to stand here, and... and I'm going to wait for it to fall, and whether or not I'm about to die I'm not turning my back."

"That's a damn good idea, Capt... Viscen. You know what? I think I'll stand here and wait with you."

Viscen turned to look at Mutoh, removing his helm et so that they were staring eye to eye. After a few seconds of thoughtful silence, he smiled grimly and stretched out a hand. "Your funeral, Mutoh; yours and mine."

Mutoh shook his hand firmly. "Can't believe we ever didn't get along," he grunted.

"Crises have a way of putting things in perspective," quipped Viscen. He tilted his head to one side, an idea occurring to him. "You thirsty?"

Mutoh smiled.

**-oOo-**

**Moonset at the observatory**

The astronomer was stargazing when he heard footsteps.

Slowly, he removed his eye from the end of the telescope, gently pushing the apparatus to the side. He turned towards the staircase, wondering who it could possibly be.

"A visitor at this time of night?" he said, speaking aloud out of habit.

From the top of the staircase a tiny boy tiptoed timidly into view. He was decked in the distinctive attire of the Bombers' gang: a white shirt with a wing motif on the breast, and a colourful headscarf (yellow in this case) fastened with a tight granny knot. His eyes darted left to right before noticing the astronomer, at which point he gasped audibly and took a little step back.

"He... hello?" the boy said.

"Hello," said the astronomer, smiling kindly. "Are you here all by yourself?"

"Well... well, yeah, actually I'm not supposed to be here, Jim told me to stay where I was and guard the secret passage... but the moon was really scary and I thought, let's go to the observatory and poke around." He pouted. "It's not like Jim cares where I am anyway. I don't think I'm even a real Bomber, I don't have a number or anything."

"Well, you are welcome to stay here," the old man replied. "There's chairs over in that corner if you want."

"Thanks!" chirped the kid, helping himself to a seat. He looked around, marvelling at the colourful décor. "Wow... I've never been up here before. Been to the basement plenty of times, but there's just old junk down there. It's... it's pretty cool up here." He nodded dramatically as if he'd just delivered the biggest compliment in all history.

The astronomer smiled and turned away, his eyes drifting to the globe sitting on a nearby stand, the one he'd been glancing at all evening. It was a map of the moon's surface which he'd started years ago, but tonight with the moon closer than ever before he was finding details in its pockmarks and craters that he'd never noticed before. He'd scribbled notes of the most interesting lunar features in his books, knowing full well that his hasty scrawls would mean nothing in a few hours' time.

With the steady patience of men his age, the astronomer put his eye to the telescope again, focusing it on a spot between the moon's eyes. The eyes were glowing as always, though now they seemed to be the light sources in the entire night sky. Perhaps the stars had gone out, or perhaps they were simply invisible in its wake.

"Are you looking at the moon?" said the Bomber curiously, then, without waiting for a response, "Why are you looking at it? Huh?"

"Why, because it's there," replied the astronomer.

If there was one thing he enjoyed about growing old, it was the right to be mysterious and cryptic as he liked without fear of reprisal.

A few seconds passed while the boy processed that. Then: "Aren't you scared of looking at it?"

He took some time composing his answer. "Well, it was a little scary at first, but just looking can't hurt us, can it? We might as well make the most of this opportunity."

"Uh... I guess..." In a flash the boy was out of his seat and next to the old man. "Can I have a look? Pleeeeease?"

"Why, of course," said the astronomer. He enjoyed having the Bomber children around – he liked to think that some of their vibrancy rubbed off on him. "Since you asked so politely..."

The Bomber boy watched reverently as he fiddled with the knobs on the side of the telescope, bringing the view piece down to a suitable height. He smiled – young or old, the telescope never failed to impress visitors.

As soon as it was ready the boy pressed his face up against the telescope, his mouth hanging open as he studied the image on the other end. "What's that? Where's the moon?"

"That _is _the moon," said the astronomer, reaching for the knob that controlled magnification. "Here, let me make it wider."

"Aha..." said the boy, eyes widening.

While the child was busy with the telescope, the astronomer gave the moon globe a casual spin, watching the face on one side appear and disappear, appear and disappear. It took a few minutes for it to fully come to a halt.

"Hey," said the boy, breaking the silence. "Um... can I ask you a question?"

"Why, of course."

"You're pretty old, aren't you?"

"Well... yes, I suppose so..."

"I heard that old people aren't scared of dying." He turned to look at the astronomer, bottom lip quivering. "Are you scared of dying?"

Sensing the child was in need of reassurance, the old man reached out and patted him gently on the shoulder. "Of course I am scared. It's perfectly all right to be scared. We don't know what dying feels like, or what it's like to be dead. Can you imagine, I mean really imagine, being here one moment and not the next? I know I can't. It's a scary thought, no doubt about it."

"You don't look scared."

"Neither do you." He gave an encouraging smile.

The Bomber smiled in return. "Thanks. Uh, by the way, you can have your telescope back. I don't think I want to look at... it any more." Pause. "Wow, can you imagine doing nothing but staring at that all day? Your job must be real tough."

"Tough?" said the astronomer. "Oh, not at all! Why, I have been enamoured with the stars and moon ever since I was a child. It's a blessing that I am able to spend my days gazing at it from here. This is..." he leaned in, whispering confidentially, "...the best job there is."

"Seriously? Wow, can I be an observatory guy too when I grow-" The boy paused, remembering something. "Wait, never mind. If we're all gonna die soon I guess there won't be time to do that..."

"Don't be so quick to give up hope. Perhaps that is the destiny the cosmos has assigned us, perhaps not. In a few hours we shall see if the moon finishes its descent."

The boy shivered. "I don't wanna die."

"What comes will come. Until then, don't worry about it."

"Then what do I do?"

The old man tugged at his beard thoughtfully. "Would you like me to show you how to be an astronomer?"

"You'd do that?" said the boy, eyes widening trustingly.

"Of course!" The astronomer patted the telescope. "What better way to spend the time? We'll have to be fast, though – in a few hours we will want to stop and watch it happen."

"How come?"

"Because," said the astronomer, "we will see something that nobody has ever seen before, or will ever see again: something unique."

"Is that good?" said the boy.

"To an astronomer it is the best thing in the world..."

**-oOo-**

**The Great Faerie Fountain, Clock Town**

Her eyes shoot open, orange pupils dilating.

Her tongue flicks out, tasting the magic in the air, savouring her own aura. Her body tingles with newly rediscovered energy. When the Deku child first woke her she was weak, but time has healed her wounds. Now she can sense it: her powers have returned.

She surveys her fountain. Like her, it is still being healed from the Skull Kid's attack a week and a half ago. Unlike her the damage was all superficial, and the scars on the walls and water have long since faded away at her direction, leaving nothing but black wisps of smoke to hint at the terrible power that Majora's Mask unleashed in this very fountain.

As for herself... she casts an inner eye over her physical body, which seems to have returned to its normal state of being. She is not truly a single entity: she is a collection of dozens of smaller faeries, bonded together with difficult magic that coalesces their power together and unites their senses of purpose into a single overriding consciousness. She looks inside herself, sees that all the individual pieces have recovered from the attack, and, satisfied, turns her eye to the outside world.

The streets of town are empty, she notes. Sad, but unsurprising. If she was not so tightly bound to this fountain, she too might have fled.

Further up, the Skull Kid is standing atop the clock tower, gradually pulling the moon closer. Left unchecked he will succeed, no doubt about it. Even she with all her knowledge cannot withstand such a devastating impact

What of the child?, she wonders, recalling the cursed boy who revived her. His soul was so strange, so unlike anything she has seen before. So innocent, yet so bitter. So young, yet so old. So much hope, yet so much despair.

Let us find him, she says, casting her hands out and closing her corporeal eyes. Let us find the child. Has he succeeded?

An ancient magic blooms from her finger tips, expanding from the spot where she reclines to the whole of Clock Town then beyond that to the farthest reaches Termina. As the spell travels it glances off the souls of the living and dead, tasting them and moving on, searching for that child's unique aura. It tastes people's everyday fears and worries, and the self-doubt that has crept into their souls. Much as she would like to blame that on the moon, she knows better – Termina lost all hope long before that accursed Mask mired its soil with its filth.

At long last the spell completes, wrapping around itself and taking form in reality. She reaches for its knowledge and asks a question. The child: is he safe?

The answer, when it comes, surprises her so much that her concentration slips long enough to break the spell. Surely that is impossible?, she says, recasting the spell. Yet no matter how many times she tries, it tells her the same thing: This is where the child is. _This _is where the child is. This is _where _the child is. This is where the _child _is. And this is where the child is.

She stares at it for a long time, comprehension blossoming like spring lilies.

I see, she says (and Great Faeries do not lie). I see.

She laughs as is her wont, throwing her head back and embracing the heavens with open arms.

It is over!, she cries, ecstatic with epiphany. It has yet to happen! It is a distant memory! It has only just begun!

The waters of the fountain ebb and flow with the thousand thoughts raging through her hive mind. The fountain itself becomes a part of her as she laments, celebrates, laments, celebrates. Long into the night she laughs, as the dozens of faeries that comprise her soul dance to the coming moon. They are still dancing as the moon falls.

How does it end?, they cry, revelling in not knowing. Does it?

**-oOo-**

**A toast to Termina**

"Funny how big it is," mused Mutoh between sips.

"What? The moon?"

"What did you think I was talking about? Yes, the moon. I never really realised how frickin'... _huge_ it was 'til this week. Whaddaya think of that?"

Viscen shrugged. "Guess we always just took it for granted. Never paid it much mind." He brought the bottle to his lips and sniffed, savouring the aroma.

Mutoh noticed. "Oh, you're _that_ kind of Chat. R. drinker?"

"There's only one way to drink it," grinned Viscen, pinching his nose and taking a huge gulp. "I'd have... wow... I'd have thought you'd know that, Mutoh."

If there was one past time Viscen allowed himself, it was this. Chateau Romani (Chat. R. to those too busy for extra syllables) wasn't so much a drink as a delicacy. Produced only at one small property in the south west, it had to be aged for several years before one could fully appreciate the subtleties of its palate. Not to mention that unlike alcohol-based drinks, Chat. R. had side effects including sharper reflexes and improved concentration. No wonder so many people hoarded it like sin.

"Never drank that much of the stuff." Mutoh grinned, patting his sizeable belly. "I prefer blowing my wages on food."

"Heh. Hey... that's what I should've done..."

"What?"

"Some sort of 'last meal' thing, you know? I hear everything tastes twice as good when you're about to die."

"Oh, really?" Mutoh raised his eyebrows. "Well, it's a pity we'll never know, then."

Viscen laughed, pointing towards town. "We could always pop in and see if anyone left any food lying around. It'll be gone soon enough; no one'll miss it..."

Mutoh mock gasped. "I don't believe it. You, the captain of the town guard, are suggesting we head into town and loot for food? What is this world coming to?"

Viscen laughed too, draining the rest of his bottle. "Okay, you've got me there." He stared at the empty bottle, frowning. "What do you think – hang on to this?"

"What, _that_?" said Mutoh, nodding at the bottle. "Empty bottles are useless, just toss it away... unless you're afraid you're gonna arrest yourself for littering..." He laughed loudly at his own joke.

Discarding the bottle with a quick underarm, Viscen reached for the crate at his feet and pulled out another. "I was saving all these for a rainy day, but now's as good as ever, know what I mean?"

"Oh, 'course," said Mutoh with conviction. "I needed the kick. Wouldn't want to be asleep when it happens."

Viscen laughed, pulling the cork stopper from the bottle. "You know what? We're going to be the last people to see Clock Town. Ever."

"Yeah," said Mutoh, the thought seeming to strike a chord with him. "Yeah, we are. Isn't that something?"

"Isn't it. I wonder what our ancestors would have said, the ones who built this town, if they knew it was going to end like this."

"They'd have probably said, screw it, let's build it anyway." Mutoh paused, raising a finger. "At least, if they were the kind of ancestors I hope we had."

"Hear, hear!" Viscen laughed again, then glanced at his bottle. "This deserves a toast."

"You think?" Mutoh rubbed his chin and nodded. "Sure, why not?" He raised his bottle. "To Clock Town?"

"Nah. To Termina," said Viscen, staring thoughtfully at the moon, beautiful and terrible testament that it was to mortality.

"I can one-up that," said Mutoh with a grin. "To everything."

Viscen rolled his eyes. "Are we even allowed to do that?"

"Since when were there rules for this kind of thing?"

"Okay, then." Viscen raised his Chateau Romani solemnly. "To everything."

A _clink _of glass on glass. A pair of long, relished sips. The two men remained standing where they were, alone in the silent land of Termina, watched only by the setting moon.

**CYCLE 0: CLAUSTROPHOBIA  
The FINAL SIX HOURS**

* * *

**A/N:** To those of you wondering what I meant by 'stall for time'... now you know. The idea for this interlude first occurred to me as I was writing the second chapter where Link and Tatl visit the Mayor's Office. By the time I got up to this stage in the story, I'd already amassed a collection of equally interesting minor characters.

(Fun fact: according to the game, the astronomer's name is Shikashi. _Not so enigmatic now, are you?_)

I love - well, really like - writing about minor characters (surprise?). They're underrepresented in fanfiction, which is a huge pity because many of them are worthy of stories in their own right. Throw in a game where the world is ending and every single character is undergoing record levels of stress and I can't understand why I haven't run into a billion oneshots in this vein already. Anyway, this was fun, and unless I'm flamed mercilessly there will probably be another one of these. Or four.

Anyway... next chapter: does the world blow up? Does everybody die? Is Ganondorf then like "well now I guess I can get the Triforce now muahahaha"? Or, does something else happen? If you're an incredibly bad guesser, I guess you'll just have to wait and see!


	13. End of the World

**INSOMNIA**_**  
**_**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

**Clock Town Square**

On the twelfth stroke the clock tower gears stirred. Creaking tiredly, the wooden halves of the Old Door swung outward one hundred and eighty degrees and locked into place with a deep click. A slab of stone slid out in front of the doorway, becoming a protruding landing which the non-existent bridge was supposed to connect to the non-existent festival tower. Instead the stone protrusion did nothing but taunt those below.

Behind the now-open door, more mechanical pieces were moving. With a dangerous stone-on-stone _thud_, what appeared to be sheer wall dropped from view to reveal another wall. That wall in turn dropped down, stopping a foot higher than the previous one. Layer after layer of brick and mortar slid down behind the door to cacophonous grinding and slamming. When the noise stopped and a year's worth of dust had settled, the walls had turned into a staircase, leading up into the belly of the clock tower.

It all lined up so neatly: the platform, the staircase, the roof, the moon; but, with no way of reaching that first landing which jutted out of the clock tower several stories up, there might as well have been no door.

Link couldn't believe he'd come this far to be foiled by... by what? The Skull Kid? Link doubted the imp even knew he'd made it out of the Underforest three days ago. Other people's cowardice? No, the builders had had every right to flee when the moon came near. Luck? Fate? But he'd never believed in either.

"We're screwed," said Tatl for the hundredth time. "Totally. Totally. Screwed. We are utterly doomed. We are complete bird's meat. We are unimaginably, uh... screwed."

Link didn't feel like spending the rest of his life listening to her whine, so he hopped down from the laundry pool steps and started towards the base of the clock tower. A vague, hopeful thought had occurred to him. How did they repair the clock if the gears jammed? Surely there had to be another way up: a ladder or a staircase hidden somewhere.

He walked around the tower's foundation, eyes running methodically over each moonlit stone, but if he was hoping for so much as a handhold on its smooth brickwork he was sorely disappointed.

Not to worry: he completed his circle of the base of the tower and stopped in front of the big wooden door at the bottom. He remembered this particular door, having passed through it three days ago to reach Clock Town. From memory there wasn't any way up to the top from the basement levels, but he _had_ been rather distracted the last time he'd passed through. He reached for the doors as if to push them open.

Tatl interrupted. "Not going to work," she sighed, drifting lethargically in his direction. "Let me guess: you're thinking you can find another way up? There isn't one." When he looked at her sceptically, she hastily clarified: "Well, not any more. There was an access shaft at one point, but they bricked it up about... hmm, it must be about a century ago by now..."

Link exhaled in frustration. Whose clever idea had that been?

She read his face. "Hey, it made a _lot _of sense at the time. I mean, nobody ever went up to the top, except for a few depressed..." She shrugged. "Anyway, don't waste your time. There's only one way up now, and unless you can sprout wings you have no chance in hell of getting up there."

Maybe that was true but she wasn't being much help. Link backed away from the tower, staring up its southern wall. The platform wasn't _that_ far up; it was three, maybe four storeys above the ground... perhaps there was a ladder long enough lying around...?

An hour later and the answer was a resounding _no_ – not a single one in the surrounding buildings or alleyways. Exhausted, Link slumped onto a bench on the edge of the square.

"You can't search all of Clock Town in five hours," Tatl said, as if he needed any less encouragement. She glanced at the clock. "Make that four."

Was the moon really going to fall at _exactly _six 'o' clock? Where had they even heard that number from? The astronomer? The town guards? Someone talking in the street?

At this thought, he looked up at the moon for the first time since midnight and was shocked to see how large it had grown. Now it nearly filled the entire sky, with only a sliver of starlight standing between it and the tall town walls. It was the sky's ceiling. It was growing bigger as he watched.

He immediately snapped his eyes back to street level, trying to distract himself by looking for another way up, but it was already too late.

_Dead_, wailed the Kokiri boy, y_ou're dead you're going to die it's going to land on you and squash you flat as a leaf just you wait and see_

Link struggled to push the voice back into the forgotten depths of his subconscious, but it wouldn't go away. All the things he'd seen these last few days surged through his mind's eye, strengthening the sense of despair, fuelling the dead Kokiri's anguish. The old lady who'd been savagely mugged and he was powerless to stop it. The ragged buskers on the street corners, their eyes on their feet. The woman sitting all alone in the rain wondering if she was to blame for her missing fiancée. The expressionless faces of the men and women filing out of Clock Town on the final day; a premature funeral match.

"Hey, Deku boy. I just remembered something." How strange. Another voice. Whose voice?, he dimly wondered.

The Kokiri voice was louder: _are you scared yes you're scared you always were you were always lying you are powerless you are trapped you are here and you will still be here when the moon comes_

He squeezed his eyes shut and felt the moon's weight above him, the high town walls in every direction, the smallness of a body which was not his own. Claustrophobia. The sky was gone, there was

nothing left but ceiling.

The voice was speaking again. It was closer now. "Deku boy? Did you hear me? You're spacing out again... Cut it out. Hello?"

_you were always living on borrowed time you got out of all those close calls you should have been dead forever ago you call yourself a hero but really it was nothing but luck you cheated fate and now it's caught up to you_

"There's a way up. Did you hear me? I said there's a way up there. So snap out of it. Okay? Hey! I said snap out of it! Are you listening? _Say something_!"

_nobody knows where you are nobody will know that you died here they won't find your body under the rubble they won't know what became of you and one day they will stop looking and your memory will fade into nothing you will vanish from existence you will be alone and forgotten and_

"Hey!" the voice screeched in his ear. "_Listen _to me!"

Link jumped – something about her exact choice of words striking a nerve and snapping him back to reality – and spun his head, almost expecting to see someone other than Tatl snapping at him.

"Do _not_ ignore me like that!" she was saying. "I refuse to die just because you were too busy daydreaming, you understand? _You understand_? "

The flare of anger he felt towards her was strong enough to drive the Kokiri boy far, far away. He breathed slowly in and out, feeling his agitation subside.

"Are you listening now?" She waited until he nodded, then nodded herself. "Okay. Good. There's a way up you forgot about. We forgot...? You forgot... Well, it's not like-"

Link squeaked impatiently. _Go on..._

Tatl blinked. "Right. Okay." With a dramatic flourish she pointed towards a water feature on the square's west edge. "Remember that?"

Link shook his head slowly.

She arched an eyebrow. "It was only a few hours back. Here, follow me..."

She led him towards the area in question. Halfway there Link realised what she was talking about – a bloated yellow flower big enough to fit a Deku scrub in. (Well, actually a bloated yellow flower _with _a Deku scrub already inside... now that he thought of it Link remembered being ranted at by its occupant earlier that day.)

Tatl must have read his face, because she laughed and said: "Exactly. Let's see if we can kick the crazy guy out."

At the words 'crazy guy', the flower rustled and a portly Deku scrub poked his head out from between the giant petals. Looking no less unpleasant than before, he eyed them warily.

"You two again?" he snapped. "What do you want now?"

Tatl folded her arms. "You said before this flower could shoot you as high as you wanted, isn't that right?"

"It gets me above the town walls," the big Deku said with no little pride. "What's it to you troublemakers?"

"We are _not_ troublemakers," said Tatl crossly. She motioned to Link. "Little kid here just wants to get up to that platform over there on the clock tower. I'll bet he's, what, half your weight? So your launchy flower thing should shoot him twice as high. That'll get us over."

"You want to use _my_ Deku flower?"

"Yes," said Tatl. "That is exactly what we want to do. We'll be real quick."

The Deku scrub surprised her with the force of his response. "No! Absolutely not! I paid for this flower. It's my property. I'm not letting you get your grubby little hands all over it."

"It's just a flower..."

"Ha! Find your own!"

Tatl growled. "I'll give you one last-" She caught Link's warning look and changed tact. "You see that big rock up there? The one covering the whole sky? If me and Deku boy here aren't on the roof soon, that moon is going to smash into us and destroy everything."

"That's your problem. I'll be safe inside here." The scrub patted the flower firmly.

"I said _everything_! Even your stupid little flower."

"Liar. You can't manipulate me."

She groaned. "Look, I can see you're really attached to your... property, and clearly we can't force you to leave..." - she paused, glancing between Link and the big Deku - "...clearly. But come on. We'll be a couple of minutes. Tops."

The Deku adult crossed his arms. "No, no, and no! Now leave me alone; I'm trying to sleep!"

Link could barely believe this. Of all the ways to die, getting killed by someone else's belligerence was just ridiculous. He shifted restlessly, hoping that Tatl could bring this to a peaceful resolution.

Tatl was balling her fists. "You're making a huge mistake, pal..."

"Oh, really?" said the Deku.

"Oh, yeah," said Tatl.

"Oh, _really_?"

With an inappropriately high-pitched warcry, the faerie streaked towards the stubborn Deku, aiming right between the eyes. The Deku swatted wildly in front of him, knocking Tatl from her trajectory only for her to begin another attack run. She streaked forward again...

It took Link a split second to register what was going on and another split second to assess the situation and decide that Tatl was not going to come out on top. He stepped into the fray, trying to pull Tatl out of there, but before he could do anything he suddenly felt a sharp blow to the side of his head.

Link went flying with the force of the blow, too late remembering that he couldn't break a fall properly in this body, and hit the ground hard face-first. It hurt like mad, and as he scrambled to his feet he tried to remember how many times he'd gotten hurt as a Deku scrub. At least this body didn't scar easily.

"That's right!" the big Deku shouted as Link stood dizzily, regaining his bearings. "There's still some fight left in this old scrub! You little pests, not so cocky _now_, are you?"

"Deku boy!" said Tatl, worry evident on her face. "Are you okay?"

He tried to nod and stumbled with another dizzy wave. That was one problem with being a Deku scrub – with all the spinning and skittering it naturally did, his human mind couldn't cope with the constant reorientation.

"That's what young people need these days!" The Deku adult waved a fist from the comfort of his flower. "A little discipline every now and then takes the cheek out of them!"

"Shut _up_!" snapped Tatl. She turned back to Link, looking him in the eye. "I am _so_ sorry. I don't know why I even brought you here at all." Her voice cracked a little, and Link wondered what exactly she'd meant by 'here'. "It's just... you know what? Let's go. Find somewhere nice and cosy, wait it all out. Maybe this is just the world's way of telling us we're not supposed to get up there."

Link shook his head emphatically – after all the time and effort spent getting this far he wasn't ready to give up yet.

"Have it your way," said Tatl, shooting a wary look at the mindlessly stubborn Deku. "But at this rate we'll be arguing until the end of the world." She moved back towards the flower. "By the way? Your cap fell off. Don't forget it." With that she turned and resumed the argument.

His cap? Link looked around and, indeed, spotted the green cap lying on the ground a few feet away. It must have fallen off when he'd been hit. He walked over, picked the cap up by its pointed end and set it on top of his head with a sentimental air. It was the only thing he had left from those precious years before he'd left the forest. Everything else from that time was lost or broken.

A clatter at his feet made him start. Looking down he saw the blue moon's tear gem the astronomer had given to him that morning – it must have fallen from its resting spot in his cap – and he picked it up, holding it up against his eye. It was perfectly transparent. Even the angry red of the moon's eyes turned a pale blue, the colour (Link thought) of real moonlight. How curious...

The sounds of bickering stopped. Link lowered the gem to find the Deku scrub staring at him and Tatl staring at the Deku scrub staring at him.

"What's that?" the Deku said. "Isn't that one of those... one of those..."

"It's a moon's tear," said Tatl.

"A moon's tear..." He seemed fascinated by the way it glinted in the darkness.

"Yeah. 'Cause it falls from the..." She met Link's eyes and saw what he was thinking. "Oh, no. No way. That's ours. He gave it to us fair and square. You can't just..."

"What?" said the Deku quickly. "He can't just what?"

"You can't... just trade it away for a couple of minutes with a Deku flower," said Tatl with a pained look on her face. "That's like selling half of Clock Town for a wind-up doll. Like trading a dragon for a-"

The Deku interrupted. "I've heard of these. They fall from the moon, don't they?" When Link nodded he smiled for the first time. "Well! Now how about that! My wife has been begging me to..."

"Aren't you listening?" said Tatl. "It's _not _for sale!"

"For that gem," said the Deku scrub, "I'll gladly let you use my flower for twenty minutes. Deal?"

Link exhaled with relief. It wasn't quite the way he'd envisioned it happening, but as long as he could get up to the roof he wasn't complaining.

"No deal!" interjected Tatl, pushing Link's hand down as he tried to pass the gem across. "You're not ripping the kid off like that! We want the flower for the whole night!"

"Deal!" said the scrub instantly. Apparently he'd forgotten all about his I'll-be-safe-inside argument.

Tatl blinked. "Woah. Uh, I actually meant for the next month."

"Deal!" said the scrub. Link must have looked incredulous, because he explained: "I've got properties all across Termina. I can do without this one."

"How about you just give us the flower?" said Tatl.

"Oh, you want the title deed?" said the Deku scrub. He disappeared beneath the flower and reappeared a few seconds later, clutching a small piece of paper in his hand. "Deal!"

Tatl gaped. She whispered to Link, "The old dude just _gave_ that away?"

Link shrugged, reaching out to swap the gemstone for the deed.

"Done!" said the scrub enthusiastically. "A pleasure doing business!"

He disappeared beneath the flower again and then launched out of it at high speeds, big sackcloth bags in either hand, and glided away out of the square.

Tatl stared after him wistfully.

"I still think you just got ripped off," she said. "I really liked that tear. You could have at least asked me first."

Link was too busy climbing onto the Deku flower to respond.

The first thing he'd learnt as a Deku scrub was how to use flowers like this one. He remembered having to endure a gauntlet of these when he'd first met Tatl three days ago. Just by concentrating hard enough he was able to control it to a limited degree. He did so now, willing himself to sink into the space beneath the centre of the flower.

All that time and it still came naturally. Link felt the central petals drop out from under him, and sure enough he fell into the flower's inside. Jagged branches and sinewy roots surrounded him, but after having to endure all-night marathons and vicious spiders in this body it was hard to believe that a little bit of plant matter had ever seemed threatening.

_Squeeze_, he thought, and the tangled stems of the flower obeyed, tightening around him for a few seconds before whipping him straight up past the surface and high into the air. At the highest point of his trajectory he spied the Old Door – it was at least a storey below him. Satisfied that he could make it across next time, he relaxed as gravity took hold.

"You don't need a practice run," said Tatl impatiently, as Link landed with a soft _plod_ on the flower. "Hurry up."

This time, after Link dropped inside, he made sure to grab onto a pair of long stems which ended in their own smaller flowerheads. When he rocketed up, he held the stems high above them, letting them spin like propellers and keep him afloat.

He landed neatly on the landing before the Old Door, and released the long-stemmed flowers to drift off in the gentle night breeze, their petals slowly falling off from exposure to the air.

With the doors open he could hear the gears of the clock tower first hand, grinding on through night and day. He looked at the staircase before him, which was quickly cloaked in shadow as it ascended into the heart of the building. There was still a fair climb to reach the roof, but there were no more three-storey jumps to contend with, and nothing but steps between him and his destination.

"Wingshreds," said Tatl from behind him.

Link turned around quickly, alarmed.

"Oh, it's nothing," she said. "Just... this is the hard part."

The thought had been bugging him for some time. He had no idea what he would be facing up there, or just how powerful Majora's Mask really was. He certainly didn't know how he was going get his ocarina back or, more importantly, stop the moon. Not for the first time in his life he was going to walk straight into the face of danger.

Still, between facing the unknown on that rooftop or waiting here for the moon to land, Link knew which he'd rather be doing.

Seeing he'd made his mind, Tatl forced a smile. "Well, then. Let's go say hi to Skull Kid."

**-oOo-**

**On top of the Clock Tower**

The roof itself was another clock. It was painted with the same sun-and-moon design that adorned every timepiece in Termina, but on this large scale every minute detail could be seen. Instead of the spinning time-keeping outer rings there was a single grooved barrier that ran all the way around the sides, just high enough to prevent people from accidental falls.

The climb up had been pitch black and difficult, but nothing had deterred Link and Tatl. Now they entered the roof from a trapdoor concealed beneath the moon half of the engraving.

Link shut the trapdoor behind him, and looked around. The floor was covered in an unnatural glow, no doubt due to the magic being used to pull down the moon. Nobody was here.

"Hello?" said Tatl, eyes flitting to and fro. She stayed close to Link. "Is anyone here?"

Link looked left and right, trying to see where the Skull Kid had concealed himself. But the roof was perfectly round in shape; there wasn't a single dark corner where anyone could hide. If anything this made Link even more nervous. When there were shadows you at least knew where to expect danger from. Without shadows...

A gleeful cackle sounded from nearby.

Link looked up.

The Skull Kid was floating in the air, silhouetted against the moon. Not much larger than Link's normal form, he looked a like a grotesque rag doll. His back was reclined and his arms crossed casually as if levitation were child's play. On his face he still wore Majora's Mask, unmistakeable with its psychedelic markings and feral yellow eyes. As Link spotted him, the Skull Kid laughed again and with a horrible _crack_ twisted his neck an impossible ninety degrees so that his face was horizontal.

"Hee, hee!" he said with a voice like rotting wood. "You again! How persistent of you." He regarded Link for a few seconds. "Do you like the new look I gave you?"

Tatl gasped. "Ah! Tael!"

Floating erratically by the Skull Kid's side was a smaller faerie. His faint purple glow was near invisible against the backdrop of the moon.

"Sis...?" he said, his eyes widening at the sound of her voice.

"Tael!" said Tatl. "Oh, I've been looking for you..."

"S... Sis..." said Tael again, looking at his sister with such shocked joy she might have just risen from the grave.

Tatl's voice quivered slightly. "Tael!" she cried, dashing forward to meet him, arms outstretched. "I missed you so-"

With an amused laugh the Skull Kid raised an arm and swatted stiffly in front of him. A magical shock wave hit Tatl mid-flight, and with an outraged yell she was sent flailing backwards, bouncing off the ground several times before skidding to a halt at Link's feet.

As the Skull Kid straightened in the air, Link spotted a glint of blue on the imp's hip. The ocarina – _his_ ocarina. Hadn't the Great Faerie said something about it? Something about being able to turn him back to human... The gears in Link's mind clicked together, a plan slowly forming. If he was human he might be able to take on the Skull Kid in a fight... but getting the ocarina to begin with was going to be difficult.

"Now, now, Tael," said the Skull Kid, turning to look said faerie right in the eye, "you promised me you would behave. Didn't you?"

The terrified purple faerie's mouth opened and closed a few times. He nodded mutely, clearly too afraid to speak.

"Good." Still speaking to Tael, he turned back to Link and Tatl. "These two," he said in a singsong voice, "aren't allowed to join in. They're spoilsports and sore losers. They're not allowed to play this game." He reached up lazily, clenched his fist around thin air and pulled down hard. Instantly the moon rumbled and moved closer.

"A _game_?" said Tatl, still sprawled on the ground where she had landed. "What the hell? This isn't a game, Skull Kid! Real people are going to die!"

"Life, death," sighed the Skull Kid with a pantomime shrug. "It's just another set of rules. And everyone one knows the rules are just there to stop you from..."

"...having _fun_?" completed Tatl. "Skull Kid, that's completely out of context... you've lost your mind! All this power has gone to your head."

"It's not his fault," said Tael, looking at his sister with pleading eyes. "The mask... it's making him..."

"_Silence_!" The Skull Kid whipped around to face Tael, raising a hand to strike him. The little purple faerie moaned and backed away a fraction of an inch. "I _told _you to behave, you-"

Seizing the distraction, Link leaped forward and let loose his one and only weapon – the magically-charged bubble blowing the Great Faerie had bestowed on him. The bubble whistled through the air and hit the Skull Kid straight in the mask.

To his horror, the imp didn't even flinch. Instead he swivelled around to face Link, tilting his head from side to side at freakish contorted angles.

"So violent," he jeered. "You should learn to play nicely." He paused. "What? Is that all?"

Link fired again, this time aiming for the ocarina on the Skull Kid's hip. The projectile moved far too slow, though, and the Skull Kid simply floated another foot into the air, easily making it miss.

"Again!" hissed Tatl, leaping up into the air with her wings buzzing. "I'll distract him." She zoomed away from Link, cupping her hands. "Hey, Skull Kid! You big ugly bully!"

The imp ignored her, preferring to dodge the next half-dozen bubbles Link sent flying his way. When he'd grown bored of this, he yawned loudly and flicked his wrist.

"You're boring."

The magic spell was more powerful than Link had expected. It sent him flying across the roof, slamming hard into the rim of the clock. If the barrier hadn't been there he would probably be in midair right now.

"Now, then," said the Skull Kid, floating towards Link's dazed form, "what should I do with you? Rip you to pieces? Burn your little wooden body? Turn you into something even less dangerous? I am so powerful... Hee, hee. No, I think I shall just leave you just as you are. You can watch me finish my game." He laughed once again. "It ends with a bang."

With his blurry vision Link stared past the imp to see Tatl hovering near her brother.

"Tael!" she was hissing. "Quick! He's distracted! Let's run!"

"Can't..." the purple faerie croaked. "His magic... I can't leave... run..."

"No... there's got to be a way... I'm not leaving you, Tael... "

"Tatl... you have to stop him... you have to stop him now..."

"How?" Tatl's voice broke slightly. "I can't stop him! I don't know how..."

Cocking his head at the noise, the Skull Kid spun away from Link. "I thought I told that faerie not to talk..." he said with ominous calm.

Tael stared wide-eyed in the imp's direction. "Run, sis, run! There's still time!"

"Time?" said Tatl. "Time for what?"

Tael visibly shrunk as the Skull Kid floated closer. "Swamp. Mountain. Ocean. Canyon. Hurry..." He choked and tried again. "The four who are there. Bring them here!" he blurted.

"_Don't _speak out of line!" shouted the Skull Kid, reaching Tael and swatting him hard with the back of his hand. There was a crack of purple light and the faerie drifted to the ground, unconscious. "Stupid faerie..."

"No!" cried Tatl. "What did you do to my brother!? What... what kind of friend do you call yourself?"

The Skull Kid laughed. "Who needs friends? Who needs happiness?" He waved a bony arm through the air, cackling madly. "Who needs rules? Who needs truth? There's only one thing that really matters in this world. Well..." He paused thoughtfully. "Maybe two. But _you _definitely aren't one of them, faerie."

With the imp's back, Link aimed one last time. With the last few drops of magic left in his veins he sent a charged, crackling bubble flying through the air.

His aim was true. The bubble hit the Skull Kid straight in the hip. The Ocarina of Time slipped from its resting spot in the Skull Kid's belt. Dashing underneath Link caught it before it even hit the ground.

The Skull Kid paused in his spiel, looking down to see what Link had caught. He seemed perplexed by the object in Link's hands. "_That_ piece of junk? It doesn't even make proper music. You can have it for all I care."

Link lifted the ocarina up and paused, a terrible thought occurring to him. To play it he had to put his mouth into a certain shape and blow into the end of the instrument, but he wasn't human any more... He tried blowing through his wooden snout but it was far to big and the ocarina gave only a low incidental whistle. It was hopeless. There was no way he could play it like this.

Tatl was furiously repeating the last words her brother had said in a low mutter. "Swamp. Mountain. Ocean. Canyon. The four who are there, bring them here. Swamp. Mountain..."

"It doesn't matter," said the Skull Kid dismissively. "_They've _been taken care of. You can't possibly find them and bring them in time." He flicked a finger and the moon dipped closer. "Only a few minutes left. Then we'll have to start a new game somewhere else!"

Frustrated, Link stared at the ocarina. There was so much power in there, waiting to be used... if only he still had lips.

_Come on_, he thought. _Work. It's the only way. Please work! This is _my_ ocarina!_

As the last thought passed through his mind the ocarina turned warm in his hands. He held it up close, dimly wondering what kind of magic he'd inadvertently activated.

For a few seconds nothing else happened. Then the ocarina melted.

Link couldn't help it; he jumped and yelped in shock. The little blue clay instrument that had seen so much danger was turning to liquid in his hands, becoming an amorphous lump of hissing, steaming ooze of the same colour as the melting ocarina.

Before he even had time to wonder if this was the Skull Kid's doing, tendrils of the same blue-clay colour were rising from the remains of the ocarina, snaking over his arms and behind his back. In his peripheral visions he saw the tendrils stop their growth directly above his head, widening out into cone-shaped openings. _Like horns_, he thought, remembering the cornet players lining the throne room of Hyrule Castle.

He blinked and the tendrils were changing their smooth stone-like surface for a rougher texture, fading from pale blue to a shade of brown... an oddly familiar shade of brown. Sure enough, when the transition completed the definitely-not-an-ocarina-any-more was made of the same kind of wood as his Deku scrub body.

Lastly, at the point where the wooden tendrils met, a new tendril sprouted, tracing a short straight line through the air that stopped just inches from Link's snout.

Link stood rooted to the spot with surprise. He'd done a lot of things with that ocarina, but it never in all the time he'd been using it had it ever turned into a set of wooden horns. Tentatively, he put his snout to the 'mouthpiece' tendril in front of him and blew.

The entire wooden structure reverberated, sounding a perfect brassy note. Whatever magic had just happened, it had worked. He let out a sigh of relief.

Tatl was repeating Tael's words like a mantra. "Swamp. Mountain. Ocean. Canyon. Bring the four here there... no, bring the four there... here?... bring..."

"Give it up," said the Skull Kid, magically batting Tatl away. "Even if they were to come now they wouldn't be able to handle me... hee, hee..."

Rising slowly into the air, he opened his arms to embrace the moon's approach.

"Just look!" the imp cried. "If it's something that can be stopped, then try to stop it!"

He took a deep breath and let out an ear-splitting war cry, magnified a hundredfold by the power of the mask, which shook the ground and seemed to call the moon even closer. The giant scowling orb in the sky was so close it could practically be touched.

Tearing his eyes away from the moon, Link returned his attention to the ocarina-horn and started to play. Somehow he didn't need to worry about where to move his hands; his Deku body responded instinctively to the notes he imagined in his mind. He summoned the power of the Ocarina of Time and began to play.

Link played the Prelude of Light. An ancient, sonorous melody of hope and courage, surely it could drive away the foreboding moon that radiated nothing but despair. If he was hoping for any visible change, though, he got none. His notes echoed far and wide, but nothing happened.

"What are you doing?" shouted Tatl over the combined din of the Skull Kid's cries and Link's playing. "Where did you get those horns?"

Squeezing his eyes closed, Link played the Sun's Song. A secret bird's-call of a song which he had once used to speed the cycle of night and dawn, surely it would switch the moon for the sun. But what had worked back in his homeland proved ineffectual against the dark magic of the Mask. His notes echoed far and wide, but nothing happened.

Tatl turned to her brother's inert form. "What four?" she demanded of him. "What am I supposed to do? How do we _stop _him, Tael!?"

Frantic now, Link played song after song. Everything he'd even been taught on his ocarina he poured his soul into now, hoping that one of them would have the desired effect. Songs of the forest and of the rain, royal hymns and farmyard ditties. He played the Requiem of Spirit, hoping that it would cleanse his soul of the Deku scrub curse. He played the Bolero of Fire, hoping the moon would burn away to ashes. In desperation he played the Nocturne of Shadow, hoping only that magic might seize him and warp him back to Hyrule where it was safe.

His notes echoed far and wide, but nothing happened.

"Three minutes!" cackled the Skull Kid, in a voice that didn't sound like his own any more. "It will consume everything!"

"Stop it! Stop it, Skull Kid!" Tatl yelled, tears streaming down her face. She turned to face Link. "What are you doing? Forget that stupid thing! Music isn't going to help us!"

It wasn't working. Whether it was the transformation from ocarina to wooden horns, a part of the Deku scrub curse, or simply the sheer weight of the moon bearing down on them with only minutes to go, nothing he played was working. The instrument simply didn't have the power to stop the moon.

Resigned, he pulled the Deku horns away from his mouth, paying no attention as it turned back into an ocarina.

"Somebody!" cried Tatl. "Anybody! Help us please!" She waited for a few long seconds, her eyes darting involuntarily to the trapdoor. When it became clear no saviour was going to emerge from below, she met eyes with Link. "We were too late, Deku boy..." she said sadly. "We needed more time..."

"Time?" the Skull Kid jeered, pausing mid-dance. "You still have two minutes. Plenty of time to say your prayers."

_Time?_, Link thought, staring doubtfully at the ocarina in his hands. A memory stirred.

_She moved her fingers in mid-air, playing an imaginary ocarina. The song she was miming-_

Link's heart skipped a beat – of course. Of all the melodies he'd played on his ocarina the Song of Time was the most mysterious of all. He'd used it to open ancient doors so tightly sealed that no spell or weapon could open them.

"_The Goddess of Time herself is protecting you. With your lips on the ocarina, this song could move mountains."_

_Move mountains..._ Surely moving the moon was no more difficult. Maybe this was it – maybe playing this would be enough push the moon away! Heart racing, Link looked at the ocarina in his hands. The intention was enough to make it metamorphose into the horns again. He raised the mouthpiece, running through the song in his mind. With so little time left it wouldn't do to make a mistake.

"_Wherever you go... you will always have friends back here. You should be happy with all you've done for Hyrule. Just... keep doing the right thing like you always do. Don't lose sight of who you are."_

"_And who is that? The Hero of Time?" he said resignedly._

"_No, Link," she said, taking another step towards him. Their eyes locked. "Being a hero comes second. First and foremost, you are a human being like anyone else. It's all right to be scared. It's all right to make mistakes. Don't ever think you have to live up to anything, not after..." She laughed bitterly. "I don't even know all of what you've been through."_

_He felt a lump welling in his throat. "Zelda..."_

"_I am praying..." said the royal heir, smiling that beautifully sad smile. "I am praying that your journey be a safe one..."_

"_Please_," snapped Tatl. "This is no time to be lost in memories." She flew up close, forcing herself into his field of vision. "And what are you doing with those horns? Do you _want_ to die looking that stupid?"

"One minute!" laughed the Skull Kid distantly.

There was so little time.

Link played the Song of Time. A solemn melody that he'd used to open doors not even the centuries could erode, surely it had the strength to counteract the magic of Majora's Mask. He squeezed his eyes shut, letting his soul into the music and feeling it course through his body. Made of wood and not needing to breathe, he played without a single pause.

His notes echoed far and wide.

Link opened his eyes.

The Skull Kid was still floating before the moon. The moon was still hurtling down towards them, so close now that one could count it in storeys. Tatl was staring at him with a face of mixed wonder and regre-

"What a beautiful song," she was saying, her eyes far, far away. "What a beautiful thing to hear before-"

Not really hearing her, Link was staring at the ocarina sitting idle in his hands. _It didn't work_, he thou-

The ocarina turned warm-

A split second of absolute calm.

The universe literally disintegrated around him. The clock tower and moon and the Skull Kid exploded in a burst of colourful particles. The very ground he stood on vanished. The sky itself ripped into tiny shreds and faded away, revealing a background of endless white. White, white, white; absolute nothingness in every direction.

The sound of a clock ticking.

Before Link even had time to feel shock he was falling through the void, falling

falling

falling

* * *

To be continued.

**A/N: **Thus concludes Cycle 0! I enjoyed writing this chapter, and hope everything came together nicely from your point of view. Skull Kid was a little bit difficult - trying to find the right balance between mischevious imp (eeheehee) and the corrupting, destructive effects of Majora's Mask (more on this later?) was not an easy task when only writing about him from the outside. The flashback was IMO still a little awkward but hopefully the precedent back in ch. 5 was enough to displace most of the cheesiness of the original in-game flashback...

_(Flashback. Link stares at ocarina)  
Zelda: The Goddess of time is watching over you, Link! Remember the Song of Time!  
(Present day. Link stares at ocarina)  
Tatl: Goddess of Time, please help us! (Pause) If only we had more time!  
Link: ...  
(Curtain. Actors bow and exit stage right.)_

'Insomnia' will return after a longer break than normal. Timelines need to be finalised, one pesky conversation in the next chapter needs to be nailed down, and Link is about to start talking - all of which seems like justification for not rushing. (Other reasons include: (1) exams... I know, the timing is very southern-hemisphere... (2) an abhorrent desire to work on stories not called 'Insomnia' (3) it's a good place to take a break?) Don't worry, unlike my last two ambitious story attempts, I'm seeing this one through to the end. Promise.

Review if you're feeling nice, otherwise... 'til later...

-tiki

CYCLE 0: Claustrophobia (March - October 2008)


	14. CYCLE 1: Second Chances

**INSOMNIA**_**  
**_**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

Falling.

The incessant beat of a clock filled the air, drowning out all other noise. If Link was screaming he couldn't tell.

There was nothing but white in every direction. In a split second everything around him had just vanished, the fabric of reality crumbling into dust. It was like the waking world had merely been a backdrop, an elaborate wallpaper which had been ripped back to reveal... whatever 'here' was.

_What did I do? _The ocarina was red hot in his hands, still buzzing from a magical discharge unlike any he had ever felt before. This was _not_ what the Song of Time was meant to do.

Falling. Something flickered in his peripheral vision. He turned his head and saw a large faint shape drift past. He stared at it numbly for a few seconds before it occurred to him: it was a clock, albeit one the size of a mountain. Its gears were turning, its face moving – but in the wrong direction, not the way he'd thought clocks were supposed to. It was transparent, ghostly; he could see straight through it. Behind it was another clock. Behind that, another. Above, below, in every direction, were rows upon rows of them. A hundred million clocks racing past his falling form, ticking so precisely they sounded as one.

Falling.

How long had he been here? A few minutes? A few seconds?

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Nothing.

The silence was as much of a shock to his system as anything. He flinched, looking around wildly to see what had happened. The clocks had vanished. He was alone in an endless white void.

Then the universe reappeared. There was no flash of light or giant bang: one moment he was falling, the next he was standing on his own two feet.

He was in a dark room. After the incredible brightness of wherever he'd just been his eyes were taking a while to adjust. He let his other senses wash over him. He could hear the steady creaking of gears and pistons all around him. The ground felt hard like stone or brick. The air was damp and smelled of rust.

"_Oof_!"

Something landed heavily on his foot. Link looked down to see Tatl taking unsteadily to the air. Her bright yellow glow made her stand out against the dark surroundings.

She blinked a few times, seemed to notice him, and started shouting.

"What the hell was that? What did you do? Why did you do it? Wingshreds, did it even occur to you to _warn_ me first before you did... that _thing_?"

Feeling just as bewildered, Link shrugged.

"What? You don't know?" Tatl looked at him incredulously. "You don't know what just happened? _You _did it! What was that?"

Link's vision was returning. He looked around and saw a few large gears spinning on a nearby wall. In the middle of this room was a long spinning axle-column that spanned from floor to ceiling.

"Are you listening to me? _Deku boy_! What was that?"

He took a few steps forward, looking around carefully. There was something familiar about this room. In the far corner a metal staircase descended away. He turned around. There was a large pair of wooden doors here, their outlines glowing from the light behind. Yes, he'd definitely been here before. But when?

"Deku boy! Are you – oh, for crying out loud. We're at the bottom of the clock tower. There. Happy?" She hovered right in front of his nose. "Tell me what's going on!"

The bottom of the tower? Had he a mouth, Link would have frowned. The Song of Time wasn't a teleport spell, not that he knew of. Then again, he hadn't the slightest idea what he _had_ done, so perhaps she was right.

Tatl inched a little closer, forcing him to cross his eyes. "Okay. So you have no idea what you just did. But _you _did it, right? That was you and your magic flute, wasn't it?"

Link nodded slightly, trying not to bump Tatl with his wooden snout.

"Okay," said Tatl, taking a few deep breaths. "So now we're under the tower instead of on top. Big freaking deal. Moon lands, we still die."

She had a point. Something that big would crash straight through the tower. So why had the ocarina sent him back inside? Die here, die there, it was all the same, so how come the ocarina had revealed a new power for no reason?...

...more to the point, why were the doors glowing?

Link took a tentative step towards them, pressing his hands against the wooden surface. Something bright was outside, something _very_ bright. What if that was the town burning? Maybe the moon had already landed. But then that would mean they were safe in here, somehow...

Tatl noticed too. "What the..." she murmured.

Only one thing for it. Link took a deep breath, pushed the big wooden doors open, and stepped through.

It took a moment for his eyes to readjust.

It took another moment for him to realise what he was seeing.

"Wingshreds," said Tatl softly. "No. Way."

They were standing just outside the tower, in the middle of Clock Town Square.

It was daytime.

Everything was still intact. The buildings stood tall, the walls were unscathed, the bright blue sky visible once again.

The square itself was as crowded as it had been the first day Link had arrived. A throng of people bustled past, morning shopping or breakfast in hand, talking animatedly to each other. Children darted back and forth between the adults' legs, laughing gaily. In the distance the carpenters were still at work, grunting and heaving long beams of wood around.

"W-What just happened?" Tatl looked at him. "Why is... hey! What about the moon?" She looked up hopefully and paused, her face falling. She blinked and settled on a confused look. "We didn't get rid of it. The moon's still there, but it's... further away. It's like... it's like..."

A thought suddenly occurring to him, Link looked back towards the festival tower. Just a few hours ago it had been a few storeys in height. Now all that was gone. The workers had barely begun laying the supports for it. They didn't seem disgruntled by having to start over. If anything, they were acting exactly as they had been three days ago...

_Is that possible?_, he thought. _Could the Song of Time..._

The faerie was coming to the same conclusion. "We... we went back. Everything has... started over..."

Slowly, gradually, her words sunk in. It made no sense but there was no other explanation.

_Everything has started over..._

Link felt dizzy at the thought. They'd gone back in time. Somehow by playing the song he'd sent them back in time. He looked at the ocarina in his hands with newfound respect.

"How..." Tatl was looking at him with mixed awe and repulsion. "How did you do that? That song you played... that instrument..." She backed away uncertainly. "Who... wha... who are you, anyway? What kind of freak is able to do that? What kind of freak... I mean, how... you... but...

"_What the hell are you?_"

**CYCLE 1: PARANOIA  
DAWN of the FIRST DAY**

As Tatl was going into hysterics, Link's mind was grappling with one important question: _What do I do?_. He now had a second chance at stopping the Skull Kid, but he still had no idea where to even start. In all those three days he hadn't managed much more than getting up to the clock tower. He hadn't learnt any of the Skull Kid's weaknesses, he still had no way out of town, he still didn't know what could possibly stop the moon... really, the only difference between now and three days ago was that now he had the ocarina.

Wait. There was something important he had to remember, something about the ocarina... In a flash, he remembered the Great Faerie's advice from before – advice on removing his Deku curse.

"_You need to get back your ocarina first. Then return to the lower levels of the Clock Tower..."_

Without a word, Link turned around and walked back through the double wood doors. Shooting him a quizzical look, Tatl followed.

"_Listen to the sounds of the gears while holding the ocarina in your hand..."_

Link stood in the centre of the room, hands raised and clasped around his instrument, and closed his eyes. In silence he focused on the steady mechanical rhythm of the gears, straining to hear something else underneath them.

Minutes passed. Just as he was losing hope, Link suddenly caught something, a faint regular one-two-three chime in the upper registers of his hearing. It was nearly inaudible under the deep rumbling. He listened to it intensely, and, as he started to grasp the melody, something clicked. The gears and axles and pistons weren't just background noise, they were part of the music as well, a beautifully dissonant backdrop which hinted at the overtones.

"_The Song of Healing..."_

Eyes still closed, Link lifted the ocarina to his mouth. As it drew near he felt it twist and reshape itself into the Deku horns, but size and shape had no effect on his playing.

With a rhythm as steady as the beat of the clock tower itself, Link played the Song of Healing. The noise of his horns echoed against the close stone walls, magnifying in volume. He listened to the harmony between himself and the gears, moving with the tinkling little tune as it shifted from mysterious to forlorn and back again.

As soon as he sighed the last note the ocarina turned warm. A tingle ran through Link's body, starting from the tips of his fingers and toes and converging on his face, where it jarred painfully. Just like when he'd first been cursed, visions flickered before him.

In his mind's eye he was standing in a dark place. Surrounding him were giant Deku scrubs who murmured gibberish around him. When he'd first been cursed, these same apparitions had rustled angrily and closed in on him, tighter and tigher until he could no longer tell where he ended and they began. Now, though, there was no malice in their eyes. They all seemed to be staring straight past him.

The vision changed. Standing right before him was a Deku scrub who was the mirror image of himself, green cap and ill-fitting clothes. It looked at him sadly.

_Are you still scared of me?_, its eyes asked. _Of being me?_

With the disembodied certainty of a dream, Link shook his head. _You're not so bad._

The Deku scrub smiled with its eyes. Then, it began to fade into the darkness. As it disappeared from sight it raised a hand, waving a farewell. Link felt himself raise a hand and wave in return.

There the vision ended.

In the real world, something clattered noisily to the floor.

"Woah," said Tatl's voice. "Did that hurt?"

Link opened his eyes and brought a hand to his face. It touched flesh, not wood.

He broke into an excited smile, looking down to find himself in his own body. It had worked! The curse was gone; he was human again! He laughed, relishing the sound of his own voice. His throat felt a little dry, but that was remedied easily enough.

He took a few tentative steps, making sure his legs worked like they were supposed to. His clothes appeared intact; the tunic and cap fit comfortably like they were supposed to. He ran a hand across his belt. The ocarina was already sitting there. His money pouch was empty, but it was a small loss. The important thing was that he was in his own body once more.

Tatl circled him, surveying him critically. "I'd forgotten you were so young. Nice. It's a good look for you. The green hat still looks funny, but... hey, you've got a sword! Hmm, it's pretty short, but I guess you're just a kid. Do you know how to use it? Are you good at swords?"

"Yes," said Link, "good enough." He reached over his shoulder to feel his sword's hilt. He pulled it out half a inch, testing its weight, and let it slide back into the scabbard. His shield was there as well. That was it, wasn't it? He hadn't taken that much with him when he'd left Hyrule. Sword, shield, the clothes on his back... oh, and his horse! Epona, the poor thing. He wondered what the Skull Kid had done to her...

Dead silence. Tatl was staring at him with a look of shock on her face.

_Oh, that's right_, thought Link, _I can talk again_.

"Oh, that's right," said Tatl, "you can talk now." She narrowed her eyes. "Huh. Well, don't do it too much. You sound like you're ten."

"I _am _ten," said Link.

"I meant eight. And stop talking. You're ruining your aura of mystery."

Link blinked. "Aura of-"

"Dinsake!" She threw her hands in the air. "Surely a little silence isn't too much to ask? I spend three days running around with you doing all kinds of stupid things, and for what? So I have to put up with your noise pollution? I mean, it's-"

"Tatl?" said Link.

"What?"

"Shut up."

The faerie's reaction was strangely satisfying. She gaped slightly, then worked her mouth open and closed a few times, fishing for a comeback. Unable to think of one, she folded her arms and rolled her eyes.

Link smiled and turned towards the doors. As he did, though, his foot bumped against something, sending it sliding across the floor.

He strode over and knelt down for a better look. It was a wooden mask, about the size of his own head. It was shaped like the face of a Deku scrub, with big yellow eyes and a gently protruding snout.

"What...?" he began.

"It fell off your face when you turned human," said Tatl, landing a few inches away from it and squinting. "It looks like... well, I'm no expert, but it looks like what's left of the curse."

Link nodded, reaching tentatively towards it. "Is it safe to touch?"

"There's still a dead scrub's soul sealed inside. But the dark magic Skull Kid used is all gone." She shrugged. "I reckon it's safe. Without the binding magic there's no way it could turn you back unless you wanted it to happen."

Link gingerly pressed a fingertip against the mask's edge, then a finger, then his whole hand. He picked it up, turning it around. It looked for all the world like an ordinary mask. As he looked at it he felt a pang of sentimentality. After three days in that form it seemed wrong to leave such a poignant memento behind.

"Should I keep it?" he wondered aloud.

"What am I, your mother?"

He slipped the mask onto the side of his belt, where, despite all odds, it didn't fall off.

Time to go. Link stood up, straightened his tunic, and walked towards the doors, with Tatl not far behind.

**-oOo-**

**The Eastern Thoroughfare  
Clock Town**

"So we went back in time and you have no idea how?" said Tatl.

Link slipped between a loudly talking couple, trying and failing not to bump into anyone. Being bigger made it easier than before to navigate the crowds of Clock Town, but he wasn't exactly adult sized and in the morning throngs collisions were almost an inevitability.

"Well, I expected the ocarina to do _something_," he said, unsure whether Tatl could hear him over hundreds of other voices. "But no, I didn't expect time travel."

Tatl nodded. "So I was thinking... Now that we know what the Skull Kid was up to, we could just stop him from getting up the tower. If he's not there he can't pull the moon down, can he?"

The thought had already occurred to Link. "It might not be that easy," he said. "I don't think time travel works like that."

"You don't think it... _you _don't think..." Tatl spun around and flew backwards so that she was staring him in the face. "How do you know what does and doesn't work?"

"Um..." Link frowned, wondering how best to phrase it. "It's just... in my experience..."

"Right, in your experience with _time travel_," said Tatl, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Come on, admit it, it's a good idea. That stupid Skull Kid'll never know what hit him... Hey, or we could get the Bombers to shoot their fireworks at him! How's that for ingenious?"

Link spied the Mayor's office ahead and slowed down.

"Why are we stopping here?" said Tatl. "We already went in there last time 'round. All they were talking about..." She paused. "Hey, do you think they'll say exactly the same things again? We could pretend to be psychics... Wow, there are so many ways to abuse this... We could make a fortune!"

"Look," said Link, pointing at the Mayor's office.

Tatl squinted. "What?" It was just on ten, and the office's front door was being unlocked. Several people were standing right outside, waiting impatiently to be let in. "It's the same people as before."

"Such as...?" said Link.

"Uh..." She at the assembled townspeople, counting them off. "A fat Zora, a soldier, soldier, carpenter Deku, carp... wait, wait, is that _you_? Is that _me_? Am I looking at myself?"

Sure enough, waiting outside the Mayor's door were a short green-capped Deku scrub and a yellow faerie. There was no mistaking them.

"It's us from three days ago," said Tatl, astonished. "I mean, it's us now. Three days ago? Now? Three d... ah, never mind." She watched their past selves with fascination. "Hmm, I look pretty good from behind. And you look sad. You still look kind of sad."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do. Now, what exactly does this all mean, o time travel expert?"

"If we can see our past selves, then everything that happened last time is still going to happen this time." Link walked towards an alley right next to the mayoral building, beckoning Tatl to follow. "If this time travel works like it did back home, everything is connected... past and future..."

"Right. Thanks. I _completely _understood that."

"Put it this way: You can't change history."

"We can't... uh, what?"

Link thought. "Like sneaking up on Skull Kid. If we did that, then our past selves would never have gone up the tower and I wouldn't have the ocarina. It's impossible."

"That didn't make a word of sense. And if you're right, then what was the point of travelling back?" Tatl shook her head. "Are you even sure about this? You said before you'd never used your music thing to time travel before. How do you know what we can and can't do?"

Link counted the bricks on the wall and stopped at one, pulling it loose. A handful of apples tumbled out.

"Remember the apples?" he said.

"Oh, the ones you stole?" said Tatl.

"The ones you made me steal," said Link. "We hid them behind that brick last time, and-"

"I didn't _make_ you steal anything," said Tatl. "You were enjoying yourself. I saw you."

"I was not enjoying myself," said Link. "I'm not a thief. You made me. But anyway, when we went back to get them afterwards, the apples were gone, remember?"

"Like you've _never _stolen something before. It's nothing to be ashamed of, kid. And yes, they were gone, your point is...?"

Link picked the apples from the ground and stowed them in his cap. "Look. I'm taking them now. They were here, so the past affected me. Now I've taken them, so we can affect the past."

"Whatever." Tatl stifled a yawn. "That all?"

Link glared at her impatiently. "This proves everything is connected."

"You haven't proven anything," said Tatl, "you've just stolen more apples."

"It's the _same_ apples!" said Link. "It's not stealing if... stop changing the subject!"

"Kid, your theory is confusing and stupid. Just because we saw our past selves doesn't mean we can't change history. At least give it a try."

"And what?" said Link. "Wait around and hope the Skull Kid walks by? I'm don't even know if this..." - he patted the ocarina - "...works a second time. We can't afford to waste this chance."

"But this 'can't change history' thing makes no sense! I mean... look, if past me and past you are running around Clock Town, why not future me and future you?"

"I guess..."

"Aha!" Tatl raised a triumphant finger. "But then if _future_ us are here, then they'd know we were arguing about this, right? So why don't they – uh, we – come down here to settle the argument for us? Because they _don't exist_, that's why! Which means you're wrong, and we should try my idea!"

"That... doesn't really make sense..." said Link.

"Your face doesn't make sense," Tatl retorted. "Come on, let's go get Skull Ki-" She turned around and froze, her eyes widening.

Link wheeled around. Standing at the end of the alleyway was... himself. Face, clothes, sword; it was a perfect likeness of him, albeit with a few more rings under the eyes. Circling around its head was a faerie who looked exactly like Tatl.

"Hi," said Link's lookalike.

"What...?" he said, hand going for his sword, then stopping as it occurred to him what he was looking at. This was no living shadow or contriving impostor. As surreal as it sounded, he was looking at his future self. Stunned, he stared mutely at the doppelganger for a few seconds.

_Does my voice _really _sound that squeaky?_

It was only when Tatl zoomed from his side to confront the other faerie that Link was spurred into speaking.

"You're me," he said cautiously, "...aren't you?"

The other Link nodded. "Yes. A few days older, though." He dropped his eyes. "Sorry. I remember being on the other end of this conversation. I know this is weird."

_I'll say. _Link was struggling to keep up. "So if you're here, does that mean I can-"

"Yes," the other Link interrupted, perfectly predicting the rest of the question. "You can use the ocarina again."

"What does it-"

"It sends me the same place, same time, every time. Give or take a few minutes. Doesn't go any further back than today."

"So you tried? How m-"

"The Song works four times, including when you played it just then."

_Stop cutting me off! _"Why only four?"

"The ocarina's power is... I'm not really sure. Something the Goddess said."

"The _what?_"

The other Link smiled with the faintest trace of humour. "Long story."

"Humour me."

"I'm sorry. I remember how weird this all was, but I have to go. I'm in a rush." Pause. "Apparently."

"Apparently," Link said dryly.

"Well, last time I had this conversation you said that... I said that... that... oh, never mind. We only got to talk this long. I have to go." He spun around and walked back out of the alley.

"Hey!" Link broke into a dash, following. "You're not getting away that easy! What am I supposed to do?"

"Ask Tatl!" said the other Link, slipping swiftly into the crowded thoroughfare, shortly followed by the other faerie. A few seconds later he had vanished from sight.

Link slowed down, sensing it was pointless to give chase. Some twisted sense of intuition told him that the doppelganger would know if he was being followed. Besides, he needed time to process.

He glanced over his shoulder to see Tatl staring blankly into space.

"That was me from the future," she said. "I was talking to me from the future."

Link nodded.

"She called me names. Is that normal?"

Link opened his mouth, paused – was she joking? – then closed it again, realising he didn't have an answer anyway.

"Huh," said Tatl, reaching for an apple. "Thought so."

* * *

**A/N:** Ugh. Maybe it's the amount of time since I last wrote, or the oh-look-he's-talking-and-it-sounds-stupid thing, or the unfortunate time-travel-disbelief-suspension-aaaaagh thing, but I'm still not happy with this chapter after a few weeks of obsessive rewriting. I'm posting it to avoid getting into a bottleneck, but if you are thinking it could have been done better, I totally agree.

Next up: much less mention of time travel. I promise.


	15. Outside the Walls

**INSOMNIA**_**  
**_**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

Once they left the alleyway, they started wandering through Clock Town with no real destination in mind. Both of them were feeling a little confused after the events of the past few hours.

"I don't know," said Tatl, when Link asked her what they should do next. "My head is still hurting from talking to... well, you know."

"Well, I'm supposed to ask you what to do," said Link. "Apparently you..."

"Dinssake!" she snapped. "We're trying to stop the _moon_ from falling. Skull Kid is running around who knows where with a mask which is, what, made of dead babies or demon juice or something. And now this time travel thing is frying my... What makes you think I have the _slightest idea _how to start?"

"Well..." said Link. "You're right. I'm sorry."

"You _should _be," said Tatl. "I'm going to have to put up with you for who knows how much longer. Do you have any idea how squeaky your voice is?"

They passed by the clock tower. Even this late in the morning it cast a shadow several streets wide. Perhaps the Skull Kid was already up there, thought Link. There had to be a way to counter the power of the imp's mask.

Tatl shuddered. "That tower gives me the creeps now. After last night, I mean... yeah, after last night, I don't think I can look at it without thinking about the Skull Kid."

Link nodded, opened his mouth – and paused, remembering.

"Tatl?" he said.

"Yes?"

"When we were on top of the tower, right before I played the song... what was your brother saying to you?"

"Tael? He was... oh! Oh!" Her eyes lit up. "I remember! He said... swamp, mountain, canyon... no, swamp, mountain, _ocean_, canyon. The four who are there... bring them here!"

She flashed Link a triumphant smile. Link smiled back.

"Any idea what that means?" he said.

"Yep. He's gotta be referring to the four areas just outside town. There's one in every compass direction. It doesn't get more obvious than that."

"What do you suppose he meant by 'the four who are there'?"

"Uh... I have no idea." She shrugged. "Tael always skips important stuff. Maybe we should go there and... and..."

"Investigate?" offered Link.

"Yeah, and investigate," said Tatl. "The swamp's just through the south gate. Shall we?"

The south gate was situated on the edge of the town square. As they passed through the square Link felt his eye drawn to the carpenters scurrying around. They were never going to finish the festival tower, he knew. As the moon drew close progress would slow and eventually they would all abandon their labour. Link entertained the notion of warning them how futile their efforts were, but it wouldn't matter anyway, not when he couldn't change the course of history.

The gate – a rectangular opening in the town walls with a portcullis and decorative shield above – was manned by a single guard in the usual drab chain mail and helmet. He raised a palm as they drew near, holding on to his spear with the other hand.

"Stop right there!"

Link had almost forgotten about the guards manning the gates. They'd caused him plenty of grief as a scrub, and looked set to cause him a bit more now.

"Good morning," said Link, craning his neck to make eye contact.

"Have you some errand in the swamp?"

"Yes, sir. May I please pass?"

"_Sir_?" whispered Tatl incredulously."_Please_?"

Link shrugged. He'd always found that politeness worked wonders on adults.

"Rules are rules," said the guard. "It's dangerous outside the town walls, so I cannot allow a child like you to leave unaccompanied."

"Couldn't you make an exception?" said Link.

The guard looked torn but resolute. "Sorry, son. I really can't."

"Come on," said Tatl. "So what if it's dangerous? We can take care of ourselves."

"Sorry. Rules are..." The guard ran his eyes over them and gasped, spotting the weapon on Link's back. "A sword?"

Link nodded.

In the blink of an eye the guard snapped to attention. "My apologies, sir. It was wrong of me to treat you as a child."

Link blinked. "A child? But I-"

"Shut _up_," hissed Tatl, trying and failing to clap a hand over his mouth.

The guard stepped to one side, curtly saluting them. "The southern swamp at Woodfall lies in this direction. Be careful, and good day."

Before Link could manage so much as a 'thank you' Tatl was tugging at his sleeve, pulling him forward through the opening and past the guard. She'd already dragged him halfway through the passage by the time he could get his mouth open.

"Why did he...?"

"Around here, people get pretty superstitious about swords," said Tatl. "They're supposed to be bad luck."

"Bad luck?"

"He must have realised you were a foreigner," she continued, ignoring the question. "Not that you could fool anyone with the oversized sock on your head. Maybe he thought you were a midget."

"That doesn't make any... any..."

His voice trailed off as the passageway came to a sudden end. For the first time since arriving here, Link stepped outside the walls of Clock Town. He laid eyes upon the outside world and couldn't help smiling.

A long vast expanse of grass stretched out before them, swaying gently in the breeze. The occasional tree, gnarled and ancient, cast a shadow across the dark green blades. A series of tall wooden poles marked a straight path through the grass, which ended in the distance where the open field gave way to thick forest. There the sky became obscured by mist, layered in purple and gold, that covered the whole horizon and shrouded the faint outline of a volcano.

Not far away a covered wagon trundled towards town, and in the distance the silhouette of a lone rider cut across the path, but overall there were few people in sight. The only sound was the rustling of wind and grass, and the occasional high pitched chirp or click.

Link stood there for a while, savouring the sights and scents. Tatl buzzed around him, taking obvious pleasure in his reaction.

"What do you think?" she said after a while.

"I..." He smiled. "I like it. This is Termina?"

"Yep. Termina is a huge place, massive, and Clock Town's smack bang in the middle of it. This whole area surrounding the town is Termina field. So called because... well, I guess because it's a really big field. A field in the middle... well, you get the idea."

Link hopped down from the gate's steps onto the grass. It was hard to believe that all this might be gone in just three days. "Which way is the swamp?"

"Straight ahead. Should only take an hour or two." Tatl flashed him a smile. "This could be fun."

**-oOo-**

The grass was a bit prickly, and the faerie's humming a little off-key, but Link's mood wasn't being ruined that easily. After about an hour of walking (exactly sixty-five minutes, if Tatl was to be believed – the clock tower was visible even from here) he still felt cheerful. Maybe it was having a sense of purpose once more, or maybe just the simple joy of being human again, or... well, what did it matter?

He inhaled deeply, savouring a nearby flower patch. Everything was better without walls.

Naturally, all this walking was making him think of Epona again. It wasn't just laziness, either: to someone who could count his friends on a single hand, losing his horse really stung.

Link sighed. Funny how he'd managed to outgrow everyone he knew in such a short span of time. The only person back home who could comprehend what he'd been through was Zelda, and even she remembered nothing of the Seven Years War. Then there was a faerie, Navi, who had stayed with him the whole time. He owed her his life and sanity a thousand times over. When the war was over, she'd left without a word, and he'd suddenly realised how alone he was in the world. He'd left Hyrule, partly to look for her, but mostly because he could never stay.

Tatl paused in her humming. "Hey. Hey! You're zoning out again..."

"I'm not," said Link quickly.

"Were, too." She stared at him for a few seconds, then lost interest when he remained silent.

It was tempting to compare Tatl to Navi, but there was really no comparison. Where Navi was empathetic, Tatl was insensitive. The former was kind and open-hearted; the latter, rude and self-obsessed. Beyond the superficial fact that both were faeries...

But that wasn't the point. Link would put up with Tatl as a companion, but someone like that could never be a real friend.

"_Boo_!"

Tatl swooped straight towards Link's eyes. He instinctively sidestepped and swatted in in her direction, but she dipped out of the way at the last split second, leaving him to clutch empty air.

She rose, laughing.

"Gotta be faster than that, kid," she said in a sing-song voice. "What if you really were attacked by a faerie?"

"Faeries don't attack people," said Link.

"Well, _someone's_ being a sore loser." She grinned. "Don't sweat. I'm a tough girl to catch, you know. You might as well try slicing a raindrop in half. Or, uh, turning the wind-"

Link hopped forward and shot his hand out, grabbing Tatl by the leg. He held her there just long enough to get a reaction, then tossed her casually to the side, watching with bemusement as the faerie spent a few panicked seconds righting herself. She shot him an exasperated look.

"Oh, _very _mature."

Something occurred to Link and his smile turned to a worried frown.

"Something wrong?" said Tatl, noticing.

"I think you're rubbing off on me."

"Is that such a bad thing?"

"Yes," said Link. "Definitely."

**-oOo-**

Their first encounter with the local wildlife occurred a mile later. The grass was getting ever taller as they got ever closer to the swamp. Link was berating himself for not bringing any water along.

Tatl was loudly yapping about pranks she'd pulled. "...know what he was complaining about. I mean, hair grows back, right? But he put this ridiculous hat on to cover his head and chased us through the streets..."

Without even hearing anything, Link sensed a tension in the air. Something was sneaking up on him.

"Shh," he said, quieting Tatl. She looked confused but complied.

For a few seconds all he could hear were the sound of his own footsteps and the buzzing of Tatl's wings.

Then, there was a loud rustle in the grass, and before he could react Link felt something heavy slam into his side, knocking him to the ground. He reflexively rolled over and sprang back up, spinning around to face the threat. His hand was on the hilt of his sword when his eyes registered what he was actually seeing.

"Gah!" he said, eyes bulging. "What the heck is that?"

Lumbering towards Link was a green gelatinous blob that came up to his shoulder height. Its surface was had a consistent gooey sheen, punctuated only by a pair of unsteady stalk eyes and a protrusion that might have qualified as a mouth. It was completely transparent, allowing him a clear view of the small leather pouch floating in its centre.

Tatl let out a delighted laugh. "Aw, scared? They're called Chuchus. They're harmless."

Link pulled his sword out, drawing no reaction from the thing. He eyed the Chuchu warily. "Is it poisonous?"

"What part of 'harmless' don't you understand? It's just a blob of water. The worst it can do is jump on you."

Right on cue, the Chuchu took a large hop in Link's direction – impressive for something so limbless – which Link nimbly sidestepped.

Tatl rolled her eyes. "Stop dancing around and kill it already."

"Kill it? But you said..."

"They're scavengers. They eat just about every inedible thing you can think of. See that thing in its stomach? I'll bet you that's a wallet in there. Some idiot must've dropped it."

Link dodged another pitiful hop. "Wait, you're saying..."

"Well, we don't have any money, do we?" said Tatl. "I reckon we need it. Now, hurry up. Anyone can pop a Chuchu. With a sword like that it'll take you two seconds, tops."

"No!" said Link, "I'm not killing this... thing just so we can steal someone else's wallet."

"Don't go all moral on me. They don't even feel pain. It's like swatting flies."

"I'm not killing it," repeated Link, stopping himself just short of adding that he didn't swat flies.

Tatl groaned. "Oh, come on. I saw you kill the spider yesterday. Erm... sort of yesterday."

"That spider was going to eat me," said Link, sliding his sword back into its sheath. "This Chuchu thing doesn't even have teeth."

Tatl watched the sword go back in with obvious disappointment. "You're no fun, you know that?"

They turned and continued towards the swamp. Link's walking speed was more than enough to put distance between them and the slime monster, but his thoughts lingered with it for a while longer. He had the annoying feeling that this was supposed to remind him of something.

Link remembered a few minutes later.

"Tatl," he said, "when we were leaving town, you said something about swords being bad luck."

"I did?" she said. "Oh, right, I _did_... hey, don't worry, it's just a silly superstition."

"Sure. But where did it come from?"

"Um..." She exhaled slowly. "It's a long story."

"Go ahead."

Tatl shrugged. "Have it your way. So there used to be this kingdom in the east, right? It was called Ikana kingdom or something like that, and the land wasn't much good for growing crops but it was chock full of all these metals. Iron, copper, gold, you name it: they mined it and shaped it and sold it. There was so much wealth to go around that nobody was left out. There were always festivals and celebrations and public holidays. It would have been a great place to live.

"Eventually they had so much metal left over that nobody needed to work any more. Okay, well, there was still an army because they had enemies outside of Termina who sometimes attacked them. But mostly they had nothing to do with all that wealth. So they built stuff. Hanging gardens, floating temples, whatever. I've even heard they tried building a tower so tall that it reached the heavens themselves. And of course the castle at Ikana was the most beautiful thing ever built.

"And then... they vanished. Just like that. One day they're in the history books; the next, gone without a trace." Tatl's voice dropped to a campfire hush. "Nobody's sure exactly what happened to them, but here's what we know for sure. The canyon where the kingdom once stood is a complete wasteland. Nothing grows there any more. Even the river that once ran through there is all dried up. And the roads of the kingdom are filled with the walking dead..."

Link felt a chill run down his spine. If nothing else, Tatl's delivery was spot on.

She smiled. "You look creeped out. It's just a story, kid."

"I know..." He paused. "Wait, what does this have to do with swords?"

"Oh," said Tatl, "just that they were the only people in the history of Termina to ever use swords. Some people think they all woke up one day and decided to kill each other."

"I see..."

"Yeah, course you do. Anyway, like I said, it's all stories and superstition. Nothing to get scared about."

"I'm not scared," said Link indignantly.

"Sure you aren't."

The grass thinned, and they slowed down as they approached the tree line.

Link's eyes unconsciously followed the old mud-caked path that snaked through the old mangled trees and disappeared from view.

"It looks like a forest to me," he said after a pause.

"The swamp's further in," said Tatl. "Patience, kid."

Link nodded, and was about to start forward again when he caught sight of something in his peripheral vision. He turned to look at the roots of a nearby tree. The tree itself was dark and stately in colour, but there were light marks on its surface.

"What is that?" he said, stepping towards it.

"Nothing important," said Tatl a little too quickly. "Just a carving."

"Who carves a tree all the way out here?" said Link, peering closely. The carving appeared to be of a little stick figure surrounded by flies.

"I'm sure plenty of people do," said Tatl. She tugged at Link's sleeve. "Come on. We're wasting time."

She sounded a little flustered, Link noticed. He nodded and let it drop, making a mental note to ask her about it on the way back.

"Okay," he said. "Let's go, then."

"That's what I was saying," said Tatl, zooming down the path and turning around to beckon him.

Link followed her down the path, glancing back over his shoulder to see the field disappear behind rows upon rows of tall twisted trees. With the sun not yet overhead, the path was shrouded in shadow, and they walked in silence.

* * *

**A/N:** This was supposed to be a short chapter. Then my subconscious was like "c'mon, just a little more". One of these days I'll actually get something short out.

A special thanks to everyone who keeps telling me this story is 'well written'! You make me feel warm and fuzzy (read: arrogant and smug and very likely to get owned by the main character in the final minutes of the movie). Yay!

Also, to whom it may concern, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

-tiki

(Search for 'minish cap chu' on Google Images, set the first result as your background, and know that this was your life's purpose all along.)


	16. Two Meals Denied

**INSOMNIA**_**  
**_**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

**The Southern Swamp**

The path twisted and turned through angular vines and wretched old oaks, turning darker as the canopy turned denser. The ground grew damp, squelching noisily underfoot as the boy and the faerie made their way deeper into the forest.

Link tried to keep his eyes on the path, but they constantly strayed from the path to admire some wild flower growing at the roots of a tree or to follow a nearby screech. There was so much here to distract, to surprise, to enthral... It was easy to forget they still had no plan.

_Focus_, he told himself. They were only here because of something cryptic Tatl's brother had said, and beyond that they had no idea what they were searching for. It would take powerful magic to stop the moon from completing its devastating descent in three nights' time, and so far nothing Link had seen indicated that the swamp had anything to offer.

Every now and then Tatl would slow down slightly. She would cock her head slightly, then sniff the air, once then twice. She would always follow this by furrowing her brow, looking slightly perplexed, before shaking her head, muttering 'nothing important', and following the boy again in silence until a few minutes later when she would begin the process again.

After the fourth or fifth repetition, Link's curiosity got the better of him. He stopped walking and turned to face her.

"Something wrong?" he said.

"What?" Tatl glanced at him distractedly. "No, nothing... I mean... don't you smell it?"

"Uh..." said Link. Every time he inhaled he was assaulted with the odours of dozens of exotic flora and fauna. "Smell what?"

"Humans and their sense of smell. It's... I dunno. Different. We used to go the the swamp a lot... me and Tael and Skull Kid," she added, sounding apologetic. "Something in the air is different... but I can't quite put my finger..."

Link shrugged. "You'll work it out sooner or later."

Tatl didn't respond. Her eyes had slid past him, and her mouth hung open, twitching wordlessly. The emotion plain on her face was all too familiar to Link.

When she spoke, there was a wild edge of terror in her voice. "Don't... don't move."

"What is it?" said Link evenly. Almost reflexively, he let his left hand run casually up the side of his neck, resting close to the hilt of his waiting sword.

"Behind... behind you," she squeaked. "Tree."

Slowly, soundlessly, Link turned until he could see behind himself, his eyes running up and down the trees at the edge of the path. The closest, its leafless boughs lined with large black birds, was a few dozen yards away; the rest seemed innocuous enough.

"Which tree?" he whispered. "The one with the birds?"

The words came pouring out at incredible speed. "No it's the one covered with candy _yes_ of course it's the one with the blasted birds, what else could I be talking about you idiot?" She inhaled frantically. "Blastblastblast how many do you count, two dozen? Three dozen?"

Link squinted. "I see five... no, six..."

"Shut up!" hissed Tatl. "They'll hear you, what are we going to do what are we going to- wait, you idiot, you have a sword, quit standing around them and _kill them_!"

These last two words came out as a loud shriek that echoed down the path. A sudden hush fell over the forest. Link looked at the tree and had the uncomfortable feeling that the birds were all staring at him and Tatl.

"Um..." said the faerie.

With trumpet-like squawks, two birds dropped from the branch and flapped towards them.

Tatl yelped and darted to Link's shoulder, latching on with tight little pinches.

"What kind of birds are they?" Link said, drawing his sword. Already his subconscious was evaluating the threat – small, airborne, fast in the air, slow to turn. "Are they poisonous?"

"They're birds, who cares what kind? Vicious killers who will stop at nothing. They don't need poison, just look at those talons- _what are you doing it's going to get us!_"

The first bird was hurtling towards Link's face. He stepped back and twisted out of the way, letting it miss his nose by a comfortable three inches. His eyes tracked it as it flew through his field of vision.

"Huh," he mused aloud. "Like a crow, but there are these bluish marks-"

"_Does it seriously matter?_ They're called Guay, they nest in dead trees, the funny feathers are sometimes used as quills, they like warm baths and long walks on the beach..." Tatl laughed hysterically. "Now kill them before they tear us to shreds!"

The second bird made a pass and Link hopped out of the way. "They don't look _that_ dangerous."

"That's easy for you to say! _You _can't fit in its mouth!"

Link paused, taken aback. "Wait, you mean-"

"_Look out_!"

He had already seen it and sidestepped automatically, causing a feathered black bullet to bounce off the ground and flap dazedly back into the air.

Tatl's hands dug deeper into Link's shoulder. "Blastblastblast! You idiot, you're going to get us killed, you're going to get _me_ killed, what the hell were you thinking, dragging a defenceless little girl along like this? Why are you dodging them? _Do something!_" She was speaking so fast she was almost unintelligible.

"Hold on," said Link, shooting her what he thought was a reassuring smile. "We'll be fine."

A few more birds had joined the frenzy since a few seconds ago. Link waved his sword wildly (that is, traced tight little pentagrams in the air with expertly controlled flicks of the wrist) in their direction, forcing them a safe distance back. Then he turned and bolted.

The path ahead was devoid of birds. Link ran straight down the middle, breathing steadily.

"You're running?" said Tatl after a shocked pause. "You idiot! When I said do something I didn't mean that, _Skull Kid _can flap his arms and run away from birds, you have a sword, _use_ it! Kill those evil things, teach them a lesson, exterminate them, send them on a one-way ticket to bird hell, whatever, just _kill them already_!"

Thin-stalked plants with blue bulbs dotted the next stretch of path. With a jolt Link recognised them as Baba sprouts, which flowered into vicious carnivorous plants. He shuddered – even after all this time he couldn't help it – and gave them a wide berth.

"Are you even listening?" said Tatl. She slapped him on the neck. "Hey, you big oaf, stop running and turn around and do your job!"

"My job?" Link began, then thought better of it. "Look, I'm not going to kill something that's acting on instinct. Those birds are probably starving. Once they realise they can't chase us forever, they'll find something else to eat. Everybody wins."

"Wins? _Wins?_ Okay, kid, maybe you don't get it. I'm a faerie, I fly faster than you can run, and that thing behind you? It flies faster than me. Do the maths!"

Link glanced behind his shoulder and spotted a single bird in pursuit, thirty feet away and gaining fast. He grimaced – he couldn't dodge sideways without slowing down first, and there wasn't enough time.

"What is it?" said Tatl. She turned around and shrieked. "It's _right behind you_! The freaking bird is right behind you!"

"How close?" said Link, focusing on the path ahead. Here and there a tree root stuck out, but there was a stretch of flat dirt just a few seconds away.

"_Way too close_!" Tatl buried her head in his shoulder. "Nayru help me, I can't bear to look..."

"Look up," said Link evenly, focusing all his attention on the stretch of path ahead. "How close?"

With gritted teeth she forced her eyes up. "Maybe... ten feet... eight feet... five f- _wingshreds_!"

Link threw himself forward, arms outstretched. He rolled forward twice and landed in a crouch. The bird, to its credit, saw its prey move and tried to adjust downwards, but it still missed the boy and faerie by a considerable margin and went sailing past, curving around for another shot.

"Warn me," muttered a dazed-looking Tatl, whose grip on Link's shoulder was now so tight the marks would take days to wear off.

"Sorry," said Link, taking a few deep breaths. "I'm not used to having a passenger."

"A passenger?" said Tatl weakly. "If it wasn't for me that bird would have gotten you right in the back and eaten us both for... oh blastblastblastblastblast it's coming back _do something_..."

Without standing up, Link gripped his sword with both hands. He rotated the hilt, waited, and swung.

The bird connected with the flat of the blade with a satisfying _smack. _It bounced onto the path, landing in a dazed bundle of feathers. It lay still for a few minutes, then staggered to its feet. With one last prideful squawk it flew into the trees, disappearing from view.

Tatl gaped. "You... you didn't... it's still alive? You botched it!"

"I wasn't aiming to kill it," said Link.

"You... _excuse _me?"

"It's not going to bother us any more, that's what counts."

Link stood up, feeling a little giddy. It had been so _long _since he'd last flexed his skills like that. Truth be told it felt good.

"What _counts_?" Tatl released her grip on his shoulder and hovered in front of his nose. "You don't show those things mercy, you slash them to bits when you get the chance!"

"I don't know what you take me for," said Link, "but I'm not killing innocent creatures for the sake of a..."

"A what?" said Tatl, eyes narrowing.

"Never mind."

"_What _were you about to call me?"

"I said never mind." Link sheathed his sword and started walking.

**-oOo-**

There was a fork in the path not too far away. A signpost indicated 'Private Property – No Trespassing' on the left and 'Swamp' on the right.

As they travelled down the right-hand side of the fork, the trees receded. In their place rose a pair of imposing granite cliff faces that closed in upon the path until it was barely ten feet wide. This only lasted for a few short minutes before it opened up to reveal a large body of water.

This, Link supposed, was the actual swamp. There was no clearly defined shoreline; rather the ground slowly became muddier and muddier until it was submerged. Surrounded by the same rock walls they'd just passed through, it stretched out for half a mile before stopping at another sheer cliff face, behind which he could see the volcano that he'd spotted all the way back in Termina Field. A thick purple mist was billowing from the volcano's mouth, running down its sides until blocked from view by the stone walls.

To the left and right the swamp curved slowly away, making Link suspect that the swamp was shaped like a giant 'O', with the volcano occupying the central island. Perhaps it _was_ the central island – he could picture that; the fiery mountain rising dramatically from the water.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Tatl with mocking theatricality, "the swamp."

"It's... nice," said Link tentatively.

"You say that about everything."

She seemed back to her usual self.

Fronds and lilypads poked through the swamp's murky purple-grey surface, all a deep waterlogged shade of green. Frogs and small mammals darted around the banks, picking at dead insects.

To the left, half a mile down the bank, a building hung out over the edge of the water, suspended on stilts. Its rectangular shape stuck out like a sore thumb.

"What's that?" Link asked.

"What's what?" Tatl glanced lazily in that direction. "Oh, you mean the tourist centre."

"A tourist centre? In a swamp?"

"Some people like to unwind down here." She shrugged. "I don't get it either."

Link started walking that way.

"Maybe they can help us find what we're looking for," he explained, waving for Tatl to follow.

She tagged along lazily, tracing wavelike curves in the air as she went. "We know what we're looking for?"

"Well... no. But if this something can help us stop the moon, it's got to be pretty easy to find."

"If you say so, kid..."

Her voice sounded far away. Link turned and saw that she was a few yards back, hovering above the water's surface, peering at it with a funny expression.

"What is it?" said Link, backtracking.

"You know when I said something smelt different?" said Tatl.

"Yes..."

"Look at that water."

He looked. "What about it?"

"It's _purple_."

"Oh," said Link, looking again. There was a slight purple tinge, but he had thought nothing of it. "I thought swamps were supposed to be... weird colours..."

Tatl rolled her eyes. "When is _anything _ever supposed to be purple?"

"Uh..." He shrugged. "Okay. But what does it mean?"

"Well, it means don't drink the water. Can't you smell it from here?"

Link sniffed. Cutting through the odours of mud and algae was a sharp smell, like vinegar but far more concentrated.

"I smell it," he said. "What is that?"

"Beats me." She raised her palms in mock surrender.

They stood there for another few minutes. Then, by some silent agreement, they both turned and continued towards the tourist centre.

The wooden supports stretched at least a story above water level – evidently whoever had designed the building had been very pessimistic about flooding. To reach it one had to cross a short boardwalk and ascend a ladder.

Quickly climbing up (ladders were, to put it mildly, second nature to him), Link walked straight to the front door. He glanced back behind him, quietly admiring the view, and then tested the door handle.

Not locked. He stepped inside, waited for Tatl to join him, and closed the door.

The inside was warmer and stuffier than outside. The walls were decorated with tribal markings in bright, primary colours. Small rectangular slits acted as windows, providing sunlight and a limited view of the swamp.

In one corner there was a darkened booth marked 'Boat Cruise' and, lower down, 'Closed'. On the opposite side of the room, a burly shirtless man stood behind a counter, his hairy chest exposed for the world to see. His head was down as he flipped through a book.

"Huh," said Tatl, nodding towards a wall clock. "It's way past lunch. Aren't you hungry?"

"A little, but I'll survive," said Link honestly.

"Suit yourself." She drifted over to the counter and, with some effort, pulled a pamphlet out of a pile. She casually flipped through it.

The man at the counter noticed them. "Can I help you guys?" he said, his voice deep and gravelly.

"Yes, actually..." Link walked over. The counter was at chin height. "Do you know if there's anything... powerful in the swamp?"

He received a blank stare.

"Like, um, enchanted swords? Enchanted shields? Or some kind of spellbook?"

The man gave him a funny look. "This is a swamp. You'd be lucky to find a bow down here, let alone the stuff you're talking about."

Link frowned, thinking. What else might work? _The four who are there_, Tael had said. "Or maybe there's someone with powerful magic around here? A Great Faerie or... something..." A thought occurred to him. "Is there an ancient tomb somewhere around here? Maybe one belonging to a sorcerer?"

"Not that I know. What is this about, anyway?" The man raised a pair of hairy eyebrows.

"It's..." Link grimaced, trying to bite back his disappointment. A dead end. "It's a long story, sir."

Tatl glanced up from her pamphlet. "He wants to stop the moon from falling."

"The moon?" The man's eyebrows shot up even higher. "You two actually think it's gonna fall? It always passes pretty close this time of year."

"Well..." It seemed like a waste of time to explain the 'I come from the future and it's going to happen' thing. Link opted for a shrug. "No ideas, though?"

The man chuckled. "Heh, kids... No, nothing comes to mind." He reached under the counter and pulled out a large, colourful drawing of a boat. "Now, I'm supposed to tell you guys about the boat cruise tours. Have you heard about it? You get taken around the swamp on a..."

"Boat," muttered Tatl.

"...boat. The view is spectacular. Especially at this time of year, when the sun golds the – when the sun lights the river an amazing gold colour." He stifled a yawn. "Plus maybe you'll see monkeys, frogs, turtles, pinktails. If you're lucky you might even see Deku tribesmen and women going about their daily biz."

"No thanks," said Link. It sounded vaguely interesting but he had other priorities.

"Are you sure? Children get big discounts. And we'll slash prices if you book fifteen or more... say, where are your parents? You shouldn't be here by yourself."

"I'm an orphan," said Link.

The man blinked. "Oh. I see..." He looked away.

"Tactful," said Tatl in a stage whisper.

Link shot her a look. Turning and smiling weakly: "Sorry to waste your time like that. I... maybe I'll come back and take a boat cruise afterwards."

"Hey, don't sweat," the man said quickly. "They pay me the same either way. Just... I have a son. He's... Look, no big deal."

He started folding up the boat advertisement, running his thumb over the bend each time. With a brief uncomfortable glance in Link's direction he stowed it back under the counter. After a few seconds' pause he pulled out a stack of brochures, spread them out over the counter and began to sort through them with deliberate slowness.

Unsure what else to do, Link turned away and started for the exit.

He was halfway there when the man spoke again.

"Wait."

Link turned.

"The sorts of things you're looking for? You'll want to talk to Kotake at the potion shop. If anyone knows anything about buried magic, it's her. Turn right when you leave and follow the swamp around. You can't miss it."

"Thanks," said Link. He said it with genuine gratitude, since a plan however weak was a plan.

He paused then headed for the door.

* * *

**A/N:** As you may have noticed, there is absolutely no consistency to my updating schedule...

...meh.

The action sequence was probably more pain than it was worth - several thousand words resulting in only an iota of already-incredibly-obvious food chain information, some very slight character tension, and maybe a hint of Link's backstory... you know, in case you weren't aware this takes place after OOT. Hopefully it was fun to read as it was a little tedious to write. (Okay, a little fun too, but that's not going to get me any 'awww's, is it?)

Next chapter: more rompy swampy business. (I just thought that up. I'm quite proud of it. 'Rompy swampy' will be on my gravestone.)


	17. At the Magic Hags'

**INSOMNIA**_**  
**_**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

**The Southern Swamp**

"'The average monthly rainfall during the dry season is three inches. Native fireflies can mate up to five times a day. The ambient humidity has a unique effect on the colour of the sky. It is said that sunsets over the swamp are among the most beautiful in the world,'" read Tatl, sounding very sceptical. "Hmm. Who says that? The tourists? The writers? The swamp?"

Her wings were straining slightly under the weight of _Termina's Swamplands: a Guide_. She had insisted on keeping it when they'd left the tourist centre, and ever since had been quoting from it with equal parts sarcasm and delight.

"Mm," said Link, sounding disinterested. Actually, he was impressed that she could keep pace while carrying the thick pamphlet, let alone read at the same time.

"Hey, hey, listen to this: 'The volcano at the centre of the swamp has not erupted for thousands of years. In fact, it is said that certain plants and insects thrive at the volcano's peak despite the high temperatures.' But they can say anything they want; no-one in their right mind is going up there to call their bluff... I don't think they'd be allowed near it anyway..."

"I thought you'd been to the swamp before," said Link.

"Yeah... uh, what?" Tatl looked confused.

He pointed at the pamphlet. "Why are you so interested..."

"Oh, _sure_,I've been to the swamp before. But I haven't read this before. You know? Swamp... pamphlet. Swamp... pamphlet." She gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Don't worry, it takes a lot of practice to tell the difference."

Link resisted the urge to roll his eyes (where had that even come from?). "How far are we from this potion shop?"

Tatl glanced at the pamphlet. "Hmm. According to the map, we've overshot by several miles."

Link wheeled around. "_What_?"

She laughed. "Don't worry, the map's wrong. We're more than halfway now."

"Why didn't you just say so?" said Link weakly.

As expected, she ignored him. "'In certain parts of the swamp, full grown mosquitoes reach a wingspan of up to two feet: this is the size of a small bird.' Hmm..."

Before he could blink, Tatl had darted in front of Link's eyes, blocking his view and nearly smacking him with the pamphlet.

"Hey!" said Link. He tried to sidestep around her, but she mirrored his movements.

"So if you were attacked by a mosquito the size of a bird, would you kill it?" said Tatl.

It took Link a few seconds to understand. Then, "Oh... Are you _still _going on about that?"

"About what?" said Tatl, feigning confusion. "I have no idea what you're talking about." She paused. "Oh, wait, you mean that _thing _before with the birds? Where you went all pacifist on a bunch of bloodthirsty vulturous nasties? Well, now that you mention it..."

"You brought it up. And sure, they're birds. They eat things." He swatted at her, getting her out of the way. "That doesn't mean I should kill them."

"They deserve to die."

"Nothing deserves to die," said Link, realising only as he said it that he didn't believe it.

"You're carrying a sword," said Tatl dryly.

Link grimaced; the faerie's accuracy was unnerving at times.

"Look, you probably won't understand this," Link began, "but just because you _can_ kill something doesn't mean it's right. Especially animals who can't know any better."

"So if you saw a bird trying to eat a faerie..."

"Nobody died, did they?" said Link, a little more loudly than he intended.

"But if you saw a spider trying to eat a Deku scrub..." She fixed him with a pointed look.

For a second Link recalled how the arachnid's legs had flailed as it sank into the sewer muck. She was right; the spider was just as much a slave to its hunger as the birds'. It was exactly the same.

"That was different," he said.

Tatl rolled her eyes. "Of _course _it was different. It was going for you, not me. If your life is on the line, it's okay to carve the bad guys to pieces, but when it's someone else – turn left here – when someone else is in trouble, suddenly life is sacred..."

"It is," said Link. "I mean, if you killed for no good reason, wouldn't that make you a monster?"

"Uh-huh. Sure. Very noble. That still doesn't explain why giant spiders are fair game and birds aren't. It's like you have one set of rules for yourself and one for your friends... we _are _friends, right?"

Link hesitated a moment too long.

"Oh," said Tatl. She went quiet. "Right. Me and my silly assumptions."

"Wait..." he said quickly. "I didn't mean..."

"It's okay. I get it. I mean, four days, big deal." She didn't sound malicious, just weary. "And who wants to talk to faeries anyway? They buzz around and don't do anything useful." She laughed loudly. "No wonder people hate us. I'll bet Skull Kid did too."

"I don't hate... it's not like that," said Link. "I mean, this is temporary, isn't it? I mean..."

"Hey, no big deal."

"I'm sorry if..."

"I said, it's no big deal." She looked away, waving dismissively. "I don't really care. See, we're at the potion place already. You've got more important things to worry about."

She was right. Just up ahead was the building in question, raised above the water like the tourist centre had been. Even from the outside it had a homely look to it, from the earthen walls to the darkly smoking chimney.

As Link climbed the ladder his mind was dwelling upon Tatl's clearly dampened mood. He hadn't meant to be hurtful; he hadn't even really considered that she might see him as a friend. A few days of being nagged at hardly qualified as friendship.

Maybe he should have tried harder to explain. Maybe it wasn't too late to make her understand. He opened his mouth, wondering to himself what to say, perhaps, _Friends are there by choice; they respect and support one another; they trust you and you trust them; they're polite, gentle; they keep you from losing your mind. A friend looks out for you in battle, shines bright even in the deepest darkest reaches of the earth, whispers comfort when the world you knew has fallen into ruin, steadies your hand as you plunge your sword into the beast's mouth-_

"Are you going to open the door or not?" snapped Tatl.

Link blinked. The yellow faerie was staring him right down the nose, looking very irate.

"I- sorry..." he said. He shook his head to clear it.

He turned the handle, took one step inside and was immediately assaulted with the smells of burning incense. In addition to this, the potion shop's interior was dark, warm and stuffy, making him feel as if he'd walked into a cauldron.

Dimly burning lamps swung from the ceiling, casting dancing shadows across the walls and floor, the floor being littered with crates. The only open crate he could see was stuffed to overflowing with red-green herbs, and doubtless the rest of them were similarly filled with potion ingredients.

Stepping carefully around these obstacles, Link made his way to the far end of the room. Here there was a long wooden counter, behind which an elderly woman (presumably the shop's proprietor) was dozing. Some jars of of thick strange-coloured liquid sat on the counter, and many more were packed into the shelves on the wall behind.

A quiet buzzing let Link know that Tatl was right behind him. She was being unusually silent, seeming not to even notice the treasure trove of potions in the shelves.

"Are you okay?" he said quietly.

She arched an eyebrow but said nothing.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, he looked back to the woman at the counter. Her head was down, so he couldn't see anything but her bun of white hair.

"Excuse me?" Link said tentatively.

If the woman heard she gave no indication.

"Excuse me?" he said, a little louder.

The woman stirred. With tremendous effort, she lifted her head and blinked groggily in Link's direction.

"Oh my," she said in a raspy voice, "I must have dozed off."

At the sight of her face, Link froze, his mind cycling from recognition to disbelief to shock in the space of a split second.

Once, not so long ago, in a future that had never happened, he had fought a pair of witches in the middle of a lifeless desert. They were servants to the warlock Ganondorf, just as heartless and cruel, nearly as powerful. He had weathered their fire and ice and slain them both in a gruelling battle that had taxed him dearly. And now here was one of them, standing right before him.

"You," he said numbly. His mind was reeling. His body was stepping back, planting its weight on its right foot, reaching for its sword.

"Have we met?" the old lady said, regarding him curiously.

Link drew his sword and pointed it at her. "What are you doing here?" he demanded, taking a step forward. "Who sent you?"

"This is my shop, dear. The Magic Hag Potion Brewery. My sister and I have been running it for decades, we have." She looked at his sword with puzzlement. "Are you robbing me?"

"I... I killed you," said Link, starting to feel unsure. "I mean... You're the witch from..." Wasn't she? The same face, same voice, same clothes... or was his memory starting to play tricks on him?

"Of course I'm a witch. You wouldn't expect a baker to make potions, now would you?" She yawned (and Link twitched, expecting a hex or a dagger or _something _to fly in his direction). "And I'm fairly sure you didn't kill me. I would remember something like that." She laughed at that, a genial, high-pitched cackle.

His battle instincts were telling him to kill her now before she could strike the first blow; the voice of the dead Kokiri boy was screaming at him to run, run, run. Link did neither; he stood there, too bewildered for action.

"You... we've never met?" he said. The point of his sword wavered.

"Hmm..." The witch peered at him through bulbous eyes. After a few seconds she said, "I'm afraid I don't recognise you, young man. I have a very good memory for faces, and yours is not one of them."

Was she telling the truth? The witches he remembered wouldn't have hesitated to skewer him on sight. Could he really have made a mistake?

Slowly, warily, he lowered the sword until it hung limply by his side.

"I... I must have gotten you confused with someone else," he said.

She grinned broadly, revealing yellowing teeth. "That I could believe. All us old crones look the same, don't we? I'm joking, I'm joking..."

Link wasn't sure what to say.

"Anyway, welcome to the Magic Hags'!" The witch swept a layer of dust from the counter with the back of her sleeve. "Now – please put that silly sword away – how can I help you?"

**-oOo-**

"The moon is falling, you say? I've heard that before, and I must say I'm not sure about such rumours. But let me think..."

The witch – Kotake was her name, and Link was sure that one of the witches he'd fought had had that name too – sipped slowly from her tea. Since there were no chairs in the shop, they sat on crates facing one another. Tatl was standing on the crate next to Kotake, arms folded, only looking up when the witch spoke.

"Stopping the moon would require immense magical power..."

"I know. I was hoping you might have heard of something that could do the trick."

"Hmm..."

She took another sip and stared into the distance, pondering. Link waited, finding it more difficult with each passing minute to ignore the incense wafting under his nose.

Eventually Kotake set her cup down and met Link's eyes. "My sister and I have lived in this swamp for a long time," she said, "and we know many things about it that others do not. But the swamp is far older than we, and no living soul knows of every secret buried beneath the undergrowth."

"So you can't help?" said Link, wondering immediately if that had sounded rude.

"The problem," Kotake said, spreading her hands, "is that much of the swamp is off limits to humans."

"It is?"

"Why, yes." She appeared surprised.. "There's a map inside the pamphlet your faerie friend is carrying. Haven't you looked at it?"

Tatl snorted and muttered something under her breath.

"I beg your pardon, dear?" said the witch, cupping a hand to one ear.

"Nothing," said Tatl, throwing the pamphlet in Link's direction. It landed two feet away from her perch.

Link walked over and knelt down to retrieve it. He began flipping through the thin pages, stopping as he found the map.

The swamp was shaped more or less as he'd guessed: a ring of water with the volcano at its centre, with tiny tendril-like rivulets running outwards. (A caption mentioned that these could expand significantly during the wet season.) The path they'd taken was clearly marked – a thin yellow line that started at the top of the map under 'To Termina Field' and snaked its way southwards, weaving its way through natural obstacles until hitting the water. The potion shop, where he was now, was clearly marked as at the ring's north-east.

What caught Link's attention, though, was the grey diagonal lines that covered the entire bottom half of the map, neatly bisecting the ring of water. At the borders of this area were marking indicating hills, cliffs and rock formations – a natural barrier of some sort. The entire shaded area was labelled with the words 'Out of Bounds'.

"They're fiercely territorial, they are." Kotake was watching him. "I rarely set foot south of the rock line. Only to deliver potions in an emergency. Koume – my sister – had to pull such strings to get the boat tours to be able to go through their half."

"Who's they?" said Link.

"The Deku tribesmen, dear. Most of the Deku scrubs in Termina are from the swamp. They've been living here for who knows how long."

_Deku scrubs..._ It had been less than a day since he was trapped under that curse mask. He wasn't sure what to feel.

"They don't take very well to visitors," Kotake continued. "They're happy to trade and do business with humans – sometimes they send their schoolchildren up to Clock Town, you know – but they get very upset when someone tries to enter their lands. I daresay they don't trust anyone who has flesh for skin."

"Do you think they might be hiding something?" said Link, steering the conversation back.

"Hiding some... oh, you're talking about the moon again. Hmm, well, one can never be sure, can they? The Dekus don't strike me as accomplished mages, but then again nobody has really seen what they do behind those walls of theirs."

A thought occurred to Link. "What if something powerful was in their half of the swamp? Not made by them, but..."

"We wouldn't know about it," said Kotake, completing his thought for him. "Nobody aside from them really knows what's down there. Perhaps even they don't."

Link nodded slowly. Okay. A possible lead. This was good. "Would you be able to ask them if-"

The witch shook her head. "Normally I'd be lucky to get an audience with them. Nowadays, though... these past few weeks at least..."

"What happened?" said Link.

"The rain has changed," said Kotake.

She frowned and stared down at the ground. With small movements she began to adjust her sleeves, tugging them down slightly, up slightly. When she looked up again her face seemed different: older, more tired.

"You must have noticed on your way here," she went on. "The water has taken on an unnatural purple tinge. It's the volcano, you see. Not long ago it began to fume strangely, and it mixes with the clouds. Now the rain that falls over the swamp is acrid and corrosive, and things are starting to die around the banks. Most of the water is undrinkable now. I have to hike for miles to find usable potion water. But look at me, getting all sidetracked.

"Ever since it started, the Deku tribesmen have been acting a little strangely. They seem more remote than usual, more hostile... It wouldn't entirely surprise me if they had something to do with it. After all, the volcano is on their side of the line... Come to think of it, the rain started around the same time that the moon began to change course. My Zora clients tell me the weather out in the bay has been acting strange, also since around then. Perhaps all these events are related...?"

"I think you're right," said Link. He remembered what had happened to his homeland under Ganondorf's dark magic.

"Do you!" She seemed bemused by his conviction. "It begs the question, though..."

"What question?"

Kotake met his eyes. "If you had the power to drag the moon down from the heavens... why squander your time toying with the weather like this? If you are destroying the world, why even worry about something so petty?"

A strange sort of silence passed between them. Link tried to think of an explanation, something more plausible than 'sheer impulse', but after a while gave up on it. He looked up and met her stare, shuddering slightly at how strongly her face evoked memories of that battle in the desert. She looked and sounded exactly the same as the witches he'd fought, yet her politeness was a long shot from the malice he recalled. It was someone else, it was the same person, both, neither...

Perhaps it was his mind playing tricks on him. He'd heard stories during the Seven Years War, stories of resistance fighters on whom all the battles and subterfuge had taken their toll, who had started seeing the enemy in every shadow, every stranger, and eventually every friendly face. Eventually the fear ate so much of them away that they could trust nobody any more, and they disappeared, never to be seen again. 'When you live danger for long enough, you come to expect it, invent it if you have to.' So the stories went. And as they told them they shuddered, for world in which nobody trusted one another was a world not worth protecting. They promised each other it would never happen to them, and, ironically, they came to fear paranoia.

The lanterns flickered. Link's shadow seemed to be melting into Kotake's.

The witch spoke. "You seemed tired..."

"Pardon? Oh. I haven't slept much lately-"

"No, no... 'tired' was the wrong word. You seem... hmm, no, don't mind me. Let us return to your quest to... well, to save the world, in a sense." She cackled at her own joke.

Link smiled weakly. "So there's no way you could get me an audience with the Dekus?"

"There's no harm in trying, now is there? If you walk up to their palace gates and ask to speak with someone, they'll probably toss you straight out, but who knows..."

"How do I get to the, uh, palace?"

"Walking is out of the question – the terrain around the border is practically impossible, and the moment you step over the line you'll most likely run straight into one of their guard patrols. But the tourist boat cruise – didn't I mention it? – runs through their territory. It stops almost directly outside the Deku palace."

"All right..."

"Now, my sister Koume is in charge of the cruise. Right now she's in the woods picking mushrooms, she is. They're right behind this shop, you can't miss them."

Tatl spoke for the first time in a while. "Kid, you realise you have no proof this is going anywhere. We haven't seen one shred of evidence that there's anything in the swamp."

"We have nothing better to go on," said Link, feeling oddly relieved that she was speaking again.

"You don't get it, do you?" Tatl jabbed a finger in the witch's direction. "The hag's running a racket here. You have to take her sister's boat, when the boat crashes you'll have to buy her potions, and before you know they've sucked us dry."

Link wondered if she remembered they were moneyless. "I'm sure she's..."

Kotake laughed, interrupting them. "You must see the worst in everyone. I promise you, there's nothing shady going on here. If you want to do the boat cruise, do it; if you don't, don't." She paused. "That said, would you like to buy something, dear? My potions work well, they do..."

* * *

**A/N: **Ugh, too tired to think right now. These author's notes probably read like blog posts. Ah well. Let me know whether the Link/Tatl dynamic is getting tedious, whether by reviewing or by egging my house. I'm trying to follow a very specific emotional arc through all five cycles (if you remember the pre-Fierce Deity questions you can probably guess what it is), and it is related to that.

I had writer's block for the entire first half. The second half wrote itself. Then I spent several hours tearing my hair out over chapter names. Depressing? A little. Moving on, Kotake's presence behind the counter really freaked me out when I first played through that section. I hope Link's arrival at the potion shop lived up to your expectations. Unless you didn't have any, in which case... something...

Yeah... I seem to spend way too much time fretting over these notes and the chapter names... you'd expect that would be the easy bit...

Next chapter: less dialogue (maybe). Also, ook.

-tiki


	18. Woods

**INSOMNIA**_**  
**_**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

Behind the potion shop there was an opening in the rock walls, beyond which the path fell short and the trees grew tall and tangled. A faded wooden arrow stood by the entrance, informing anyone who stopped to read it that the area beyond was the 'Woods of Mystery'.

After a brief stop to quench his thirst at a nearby spring Link found himself standing before this sign, staring into the opening beyond.

"Want to know why they call it the woods of mystery?" said Tatl.

Link shook his head. "Kotake said her sister went in there hours ago to look for ingredients. I think she said sunrise. It's the middle of the afternoon, though." He frowned. "Do you think something might have happened to her, like getting lost? She's our only lead right now."

"They call it the woods of mystery because it's mysterious."

"What?... Stop changing the subject. Do you know the way through these woods?"

"Well, because it's mysterious _and_ because people get lost in there. You know, 'missing tourist'? Mystery?"

"Come on," said Link. "Do you know the way through..."

"Sheesh, you're impatient. No, I don't know the way. There is no 'way'. No paths, no landmarks, no nothing. Witch number two could be anywhere in there."

"Okay. So we'll have to hunt around there."

Something caught Link's eye, and he turned back to look at the sign. A recent-looking addendum was nailed underneath it: 'Caution – no entry without a qualified swamp tour guide, bookings necessary'.

He frowned. "Maybe we should go back and ask..."

"Oh, please." Tatl rolled her eyes. "You want to know why that warning's there?"

"Not really..."

"About twenty years ago some guy came down here on a holiday, went into the woods, and got lost. By the time he found his way out, he'd missed the boat cruise he booked, so he asked for a refund. A few days later, the tourist centre changes the sign."

Link laughed. "Really?"

"Yeah, really. Come on, if you're dead set on finding the other witch, you might as well stick your head in and see if she's nearby."

"What if we get lost?" Even from here the lines and lines of trees looked uniform, so getting lost wasn't entirely unimaginable. Combine that with the falling moon and you had a pretty embarrassing way to die.

"I'm a faerie. I can fly straight up..." - she zipped up an inch to illustrate her point - "...and see which way the swamp is." She gave him a _just-how-stupid-are-you? _sort of look, and started towards the opening.

With Tatl leading the way, they passed through the rocky opening and started into the 'woods of mystery'. Immediately the sky was all but swallowed up by a dense long-leaved canopy which filtered the sunlight into pencil-sized beams of gold and green. The air smelled strongly of plants Link couldn't name.

After just a few dozen feet, Link stopped and glanced back. The entrance was already invisible behind all the trees.

Hopefully they wouldn't have to go too deep.

**-oOo-**

They had been trekking for a quarter of an hour, mostly through thick tangled areas but also passing by the occasional open clearing, when Tatl startled Link by suddenly shouting: "Hello? Anyone out there?"

Link jumped. "What are you doing?" he said to her, nursing his ear.

"I'm shouting," Tatl said. "I _was _shouting. Whatever, same difference."

"I know you're shouting. Why? What if someone hears..."

She looked at him as if he had just announced the sky was pink. "Uh, that's the point, kid. If you want to find that witch lady, you should shout too."

He felt his face flush. "I didn't mean the witch. I meant... we don't know who else is in here. What if something dangerous is..."

"_Please_. Nobody goes into these woods. And before you ask, there aren't any dragons or whatever you're worried about. Whenever I've come in here before, with and Tael and... we never saw anything remotely scary in here." She cupped her hands and raised her voice again. "Any witches out there? Hel-_lo_?"

"Must you..."

"Yep. Are you going to help? Just my voice by itself isn't that loud."

Link's battered eardrums said otherwise, but he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of knowing that. Instead, he mumbled something along the lines of "it's rude to shout".

Tatl laughed, a short incredulous _ha_. "Wow. I mean, no offence, but wingshreds, you are the lamest person I've ever met. We're in the middle of nowhere. Nobody's going to hear you except the crazy witch."

Link remained steadfast. "I'm not going to shout," he said, "but if you want to, go ahead."

"Pssh, hypocrite..."

Tatl started calling out into the woods again. With some effort, Link tuned her out and kept his eyes out for any signs of the witch. She was probably wearing black like her sister, and so he tried to spot that colour amidst the white-yellows of tree trunks and the green-browns of shrubbery.

A flash of blue not far away caught his attention and he slowed down, squinting.

It was an animal of some sort: green and scaly with a round, lizard-like head, but its entire body was covered by a hard plated shell. Thick calcified spikes surrounded the edge of the shell, more than enough to discourage any opportunistic predator.

The hard-shelled reptile was large (its shell easily bigger than Link's body), and as it lumbered through the trees its neck turned slowly, its eyes passing over Link and Tatl and disregarding them.

"What is that?" said Link quietly.

Tatl followed his gaze. "Oh, it's a snapper. Technically the ridged something tortoise." She paused, looking at him. "You know? Tortoise?"

"No," he admitted.

"Well... tortoises are... like that, I guess. Things with shells. This kind is the biggest, and they live all over the swamp. They love the heat, I guess."

They were passing close to the tortoise now. It was only some twenty feet away, eyeing them once again.

"Should I be worried about the spikes?" said Link.

"Nah, those things are herbivegitarians. They're friendly so long as you don't go poking them with lit matches or something. They can be scarily fast when they're angry."

"Okay-" The rest of her words registered. "Why would I... _lit matches_?"

Tatl shrugged. "Some people like it."

"Some people meaning you and your brother?" said Link.

"Hey, what's that?"

The trees were thinning and looking ahead Link caught a glimpse of something hard and grey. He grimaced, expecting the worse.

Sure enough, it turned out to be the stone walls that bordered the woods. And not a hundred yards away was the opening they had entered through. Even the 'no entry' sign was clearly visible from where they stood.

"How on earth...?" he began. They had been walking in a straight line; how could they have doubled back on themselves in just twenty minutes?

Tatl slowed down, her wings buzzing noisily next to Link's ear. "Woah... I swear we were heading straight..."

"Me too."

"Hey, don't look at me. I was just following _you_, kid."

Link found himself reminded of another woods near his old home – the proper kind of woods, with oaks and pines and the crisp leaves of a perpetual autumn – which had been enchanted so that one always lost one's way inside there. Perhaps something like that was afoot here. Then again, perhaps his sense of direction was a lot worse than he remembered. The last time he'd explored anywhere this exotic, he'd had a much better guide by his side.

Maybe Tatl was right; maybe all this business with witches and Deku tribes was a waste of time. Feeling more and more stupid by the second, he walked to the opening, and glanced through to make sure that they were indeed outside the potion shop again. Then he turned and faced the woods.

He wasn't going back inside without some way of keeping his bearings straight; that was for sure. He considered and immediately dismissed the sun: the canopy hid it from view, even masking the shadows with its ambient glow. For a few brief seconds he entertained using breadcrumbs to leave a trail (a trick supposedly employed by young boys and girls hiding from Ganondorf's minions). No doubt the tortoises would eat the crumbs up if he tried.

"So what now?" said Tatl.

"I don't know," Link replied. "Hmm... you wouldn't happen to have a compass, would you?"

"Yes, I've been hiding it behind my back this whole time, waiting for you to ask me that exact question." She made a show of reaching behind. "Oh. Guess not. That explains why I couldn't feel something _ten times my weight _dragging me down."

"I was just asking," said Link, feeling irritated then immediately feeling guilty for feeling irritated.

She snorted derisively. "Asking. You're _always _asking something. Question after question after question." She raised her voice a full register in a horrendously inaccurate imitation of the boy's voice. "'What's that, Tatl? Which way, Tatl?' No small talk, no 'nice weather today'..."

"Come on, let's stay focused." She was just trying to get a reaction, he thought, no point taking the bait.

"Oh, I'm focused all right. _You're _the one who needs to stop and think."

"What? You're not making any..."

There was a rustling sound from a nearby set of bushes. They quivered for a few seconds, and then a small silver-haired monkey hopped out from between the fronds, chittering loudly. It made a beeline for the pair, who had stopped arguing to watch it scurry across the forest floor, and reached with one furry paw for the leg of Link's pants.

Link quickly stepped out of the way, automatically assessing the newcomer: small (about his own chest height), fast and agile-looking, with no visible claws or fangs. It had stopped moving, sensing his hesitation, and was loudly _ook_ing and _eek_ing, clearly after his attention.

"Is it dangerous?" he said.

"Question. And no. It's a monkey. They're very friendly, unlike certain people. Smart, too. They run away when you light a match."

It was hopping up and down, looking quite agitated.

"What's wrong?" said Link, trying not to feel silly. Talking to a monkey was no less ridiculous than talking to a horse.

"I'm being harassed by a big boy in green, ook," muttered Tatl behind her hand. "He should be nicer to that poor faerie, ook."

The monkey scampered a few feet away and turned to face them again. There was something almost human-like about its movements. With a few anxious shrieks it waved its hands in a circular motion, as if it were pulling something towards it. Beckoning, Link realised.

"I think it wants me to follow it," he said.

"_Us _to follow it," corrected Tatl.

Link was reminded of those three days he'd spent under the Deku scrub curse. Funny how much could be said without words. Funny how much personality could be conveyed – he could see the urgency in the animal's beady eyes, the worry in its pink fleshy face.

He took a few steps towards the monkey. As he did, it started walking backwards in time with his steps, continuing to wave a hand whenever it had one free.

It led him a few feet to the nearest tree, then stopped and turned its back to him. It crouched on four limbs and pressed its chin to the ground, somewhat like a runner at the starting block. _Exactly _like.

_Oh, great_, thought Link. He had just enough time to take a deep breath.

With a excited screech the monkey launched itself into a sprint, scampering across the ground as fast as Link could run. And run Link did, quickly matching the animated creature's pace. It snaked this way and that around the trees, and he followed it, never more than a dozen feet behind.

"This is sooo pointless!" yelled Tatl giddily, zigzagging beside him.

"Yeah," Link managed between breaths, ducking an overhead branch. "Maybe."

They raced through the woodlands, the monkey slipping between every narrow gap imaginable and Link mirroring its path exactly even when he could have just gone around. It never stopped but slowed down occasionally, checking to see the boy was still there, then letting out an exhilarated cry and picking up the pace.

He tripped over a low-lying root, landed into a forward roll, was up and running by the time his mind registered what had happened, laughed wildly; the trees became sparse and the canopy opened up a little and a golden light streamed through the leaves; he thought they were going in circles around the forest and maybe they were; the path seemed to double back on itself but they kept passing rocks and wildflowers he hadn't noticed before; he was nine again, running through the woods without a worry in the world, there was no future, no consequences, the most horrendous fate imaginable was never having a faerie companion like the other forest children; no, he was ten, the forest was dead, the burning towns forever etched onto his heart, the moon was falling, the most horrendous fate imaginable was being a hero, the only person who can make a difference; sun-dappled glades, ash-coated worlds.

After minutes, maybe hours, the trees finally opened up to reveal a clearing easily a quarter mile in diameter. The monkey slowed down, and so did Link.

The grass was tall and dotted with boulders, at whose bases bloomed patches of flowers and herbs in every colour that could be called natural. Bees and butterflies danced in his peripheral vision, disappearing when he turned to look at them. If not for the canopy overhead they could easily have been standing in the countryside.

The monkey dashed ahead, coming to rest beside a dark shape on the ground. It screeched and waved them closer.

For a moment Link wasn't sure what he was seeing. Then it clicked: it was the witch they'd been looking for, lying on her side. She looked exactly like her sister, and so exactly like the witches who he had killed in the Hylian desert. The grass around her was coated with something dry and dark red.

He wasted no time in dashing to the witch's side. "Are you okay?" he said, kneeling.

"Ooh... owow-ow..." The witch's head turned. Her eyes swivelled to look at Link. "Help me..."

"I can stop the bleeding," said Link. "Where is..." He stopped, looking more closely. There was blood but no sign of a wound. "What happened?"

"He hit me from behind," she croaked. "This morning, right after sunrise... I was just minding my own business, picking mushrooms... and bam. The little pest hit me."

"What pest? Who hit you?" Link ran his hands carefully across her arms. No blood, no broken bones.

"Skull Kid... he..." The witch blinked as if seeing him for the first time. "Who are you?"

Tatl gaped. "Skull Kid? Are you sure?"

"Yes, yes. Did he think an old hag couldn't recognise him if he hid his face? The nerve of that child... Who _are _you?"

"I'm Tatl, and this is... why would Skull Kid _do _that?"

"What did he do to you?" said Link. "What can we do?" A faint memory stirred, and he glanced at Tatl curiously. He made a note to ask later.

The witch moaned. "I don't know... I can't move... ooh-ow, please don't touch that... to think he's that powerful... he was always playing tricks on us, he was, knocking over our crates and stealing our signs, but I would never have thought he could do..." Her eyes narrowed. "Say... aren't you one of those faeries who always follows Skull Kid around?"

"_Us _following _him_?" said Tatl indignantly. Then, "No, you must have me confused with someone else."

The witch managed half a disdainful cackle before breaking into a coughing fit. "I... ack... my energy is sapped. You... you don't look like you know healing magic... much too young..."

Link shook his head.

"We should go get help," said Tatl. She was staring straight through the witch with an air of faint revulsion. "I don't have to be a Great Faerie to see her aura is... well, look, it's going to take some heavy duty magic to help her. Maybe the other hag will do better."

"Other hag?" said the witch quickly. "You mean Kotake?" (Link nodded.) "Ah, so you came by the... ow... the potion shop, did you? Then run back to my sister and fetch some of the red potion from her."

"Red?" said Tatl dully. "Descriptive."

She cackled. "Silly faerie. There's red potions, and then there's the red potion. She'll know what I mean. Now go. Hurry. Nightfall is soon and I have no intention..." - she winced - "...no intention of being here all night."

"Okay..." said Link, standing up. "Are you going to be all right?" Uncanny resemblances aside, he felt uncomfortable just leaving the old woman alone in the woods.

"I've been lying here all day," she scowled, "I doubt a few more minutes will kill me."

"Are you sure?"

Tatl grabbed a tiny handful of Link's tunic and tugged him up. "Come on, you heard the lady. Let's go."

Link stood, brushing dirt from his knees. He turned around, facing the edge of the clearing where the trees started up again, and paused. The monkey they had followed here was nowhere to be seen.

"Uh..." Tatl pointed wildly ahead. "We came this way. Sort of."

"All right," said Link dubiously. He thought he remembered enough of the landmarks on the way in to reconstruct the path they'd taken, but it would be slow going.

After another quick check on the witch, who assured him she would survive being left alone but for goodness' sake hurry up, he started back into the woods, with Tatl at his side. They started off briskly but slowed to a trudge soon after.

"I can't believe that Skull Kid," said Tatl as soon as they were out of earshot. "I mean, I was up there on that tower with you, I saw how crazy he'd gone, but... I can't believe him. The stuff we used to do was always harmless. This is..."

"There's not much you can do if he's turned... mean," said Link, avoiding _evil_. "Just try not to think about it too much."

"Oh, great advice. Don't think about it. Thanks." She groaned. "Can't we... the witch said he attacked her this morning. Can't we... can't you do your crazy time travel thing so we can stop him from ever hitting her? You could beat some sense into that kid... oh, I forgot, you're not violent when I actually want you to be..."

"If I had a chance to stop Skull Kid from destroying the entire world I wouldn't be afraid to hit him," said Link. Couldn't she just drop it? "But it won't work, remember? You can't change history, we had the same conversation this morning."

"How do you know if you don't try? And what makes you such an expert anyway?" she demanded.

"I've..."

Link paused, wondering how to answer that without explaining everything that had happened to him since his tenth birthday and those first nightmares. He disliked Tatl enough that he didn't want to confide his story in her; he respected her enough that he didn't want to burden her with it anyway.

"I guess you could say I've had some experience with time travel..." he began cautiously.

"Great," grumbled Tatl, looking away. "He chooses this exact moment to discover sarcasm."

"I'm not being..."

Link trailed off as the rock walls of the boundary came into view. They were back at the exact spot they'd entered by, 'woods of mystery' signpost and all. Link was sure they hadn't been walking for even two minutes.

"What the hell?" said Tatl, echoing his sentiments. "How did we get back here so fast?"

"I want to know how we didn't find that clearing before if it's right in front of the entrance," said Link. It had to be magic. He couldn't imagine how this could have happened otherwise. "At least we got here quickly."

**-oOo-**

**Magic Hags' Potion Brewery  
The Southern Swamp**

"_What!?_"

Kotake's outraged shriek left all the jars on the counter rattling. Every vein on her wrinkled face throbbed madly, and such was the look in her eyes that for a second Link thought she was going to hop off her seat and dash into the forest herself.

"The Skull Kid got to Koume?" she said. (Link attempted to commit the other witch's name to memory.) "That's ridiculous! My sister is a highly qualified witch. If it's just the Skull Kid, then what harm could he possibly do?"

"You have to believe me," said Link. "The wit... Koume needs help."

Kotake exhaled slowly. "Gone are the days when I could rush down there and navigate the woods myself," she said, turning to rummage through a cupboard filled with a colourful assortment of potions. "She can't move, did you say? Can you be more specific? What else did you see?"

"There was blood," began Link, "but I couldn't..."

Tatl cut in. "She wants the red potion."

Kotake's eyes bulged. "That bad?"

"Um... what _is _the red potion, anyway?" said Tatl.

"Never you mind that," said Kotake. She pulled a stone mortar and pestle from the cupboard, set it on the counter, and began stirring vigorously. Link was just tall enough to catch a glimpse of something red and thick sloshing around inside the vessel.

"I've seen potions like that before," he said.

"Have you, now?" said the witch. She turned and started rummaging through another shelf. "I suppose it's one of those universal things. The red potion, universal problem solver..."

"Why is it called that?" said Tatl. "Just 'red'?"

"Because otherwise," replied Kotake, "I'd have to name it after its ingredients, and who would want to buy... aha." She pulled a glass jar out and uncorked it. Inside it, suspended in a bubbling green fluid, was what looked suspiciously like a human eyeball.

"What's that?" asked Link.

"Oh, nothing important," said Kotake, emptying the contents of the jar onto the floor, where it splashed onto their feet. "It went bad years ago..." In one smooth motion she transferred a dollop of the red mixture into the now-empty jar. She corked it, shook it vigorously, then set it down on the counter. "Take this potion to Koume. Quick! Go!" She waved them out of the potion shop like an angry duck.

They hurried outside, and it wasn't until they were back at the 'Woods' signpost that a thought occurred to Link.

"I should have asked her if I could keep the bottle," he said. He turned the glass vessel over in his hands, watching its contents slosh about.

"Jar," corrected Tatl. "Everyone knows bottles have neck things. And why do you want to keep it?"

"They're..." He shrugged. "They're handy for holding stuff. "

She made a disgusted face. "Did you see what she was keeping in that jar? I wouldn't want to touch it after that..."

Entering the woods once more, they walked straight ahead, neither of them looking very confident that they would end up at the clearing again, and neither of them willing to admit that the woods' layout was completely perplexing.

"Can I ask you something?" said Link after a few minutes' silence.

Tatl rolled her eyes. "You _can_."

"Back when... last time around, the first night I spent as a Deku scrub, you healed an old lady in the park. With... Koume, couldn't you have just..."

"Oh, please. _That _old crone had a sore neck from being pushed over. Any amateur could have fixed that, even you. _This _old crone was hexed with who knows what kind of magic from that stupid mask of Skull Kid's."

"Right." Link nodded. Another question occurred to him. "Would a... would one of those healing faeries have been able to cure her?"

Tatl snorted. "'Healing faeries'? As in those self-obsessed wannabe martyrs? The ones who spend their entire lives gathering up so much life force that their aura turns goody-goodwings pink?"

"Um..."

"And then they spend their days hanging around in old creepy monster infested ruins, waiting for some stupid treasure hunter to come along and stub her toe so that they can swoop in, all glittering and shining and whatever, and heal the idiot in a massive burst of magic that kills them, because they think it makes them important? Is _that _who you mean?"

Link opened his mouth then closed it.

Tatl smiled victoriously. "See, you landbounders... you know, humans, Dekus, whatever... you never think twice of it. It's always, hey, how nice of that faerie to save my sorry butt. It's never, woah, that faerie just killed himself in front of me, that's a little creepy."

"I don't think I believe you," said Link after a pause. "The healing faeries I've seen don't die once they're done, they just... wander away..."

"So you found some polite ones. They probably high-tailed it out of sight before keeling over. Big difference." Tatl looked up and sighed. "I think we're lost."

Right on cue, the trees thinned and the clearing came into view. Link laughed, glancing to see the faerie's reaction.

She tossed her hands into the air. "Okay, this place is officially not normal. Some crazy old sorcerer's idea of a joke."

The witch – Koume – was still lying in the middle of the grass, illuminated by the last rays of dying sun. As Link and Tatl approached she shifted her head slightly, following them with her bulbous eyes.

"Back already?" she said when they were close. "What a pleasant surprise. I'd expected you to get lost in the woods."

"Flattering," said Tatl. "We got you your potion, you know. A little 'thank you' wouldn't kill you."

"Don't mind her," said Link. He knelt down and carefully uncorked the bottle (did jars have corks? He didn't think so). He raised the bottle to Koume's mouth. "Do you want me to...?"

The witch nodded. "Please."

With his help she gulped down the contents, one thick red mouthful at a time. Once she was done she licked her lips, sighing, "Ah... that's Kotake's brew all right..." She grinned at Link. "Thank you, young man. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't come by."

Smiling back uncomfortably, Link said, "Well... we were looking for you, actually."

"Looking for me?"

Link waved her away half-heartedly. "I need to get to the Deku scrubs' half of the swamp."

"He thinks he can save the world if he gets there," said Tatl helpfully. "Don't bother asking. He's..." - she lowered her voice to a stage whisper - "...a few grapes short of a bunch, know what I mean?"

Koume looked baffled. "Well, I can't say I understand... whoops! Potion's kicking in..." Her eyes rolled upwards and she sighed. "Ooh... feel the energy flow..."

"Ooh," said Tatl, staring straight through the witch. "Her aura. _Shiny_."

Without warning Koume sprang to her feet, laughing triumphantly. "Yes! I am revived, I am!"

Link jumped, very nearly drawing his sword. "That's... good..." he said, taking a step back just in case.

With a wide yellow-teethed smile Koume stepped forward and hugged Link, who tensed up and tried not to think too hard about how much the witch resembled that old enemy, or how she smelled pungently of incense and swamp water, or how...

Tatl burst into giggles, and Koume to let go.

"What's so funny?" said Koume, as Link stepped away, gasping for breath. (She had surprising strength; he felt like he'd just been hugged by a baby Goron.)

Tatl clapped her hands over her mouth, completely failing to suppress her giggles. "Oh, nothing... I mean, the look on his face... nothing!..."

Snickering madly, she disappeared behind a rock where she failed to become any quieter.

To fill the silence, Link said, "Would you be able to take me across to the Deku half of the swamp?"

"Oh, you want a _boat cruise_," said Koume. "Of course. In fact, I'll give you the cruise for free. Kindness deserves its rewards..."

"Thanks," said Link. "Um... how quickly can you get there?"

"Oh, not until tomorrow morning," said Koume. "I don't operate the boat at night."

"But it's not..." He looked up. The little of the sky visible through the canopy was the colour of sunset. "Oh."

The witch laughed good-naturedly. "Lost track of time, did you?" She caught the look on his face. "Ah, you don't have a place to spend the night, do you?"

"No," he admitted. "But it's okay, I'm used to sleeping outside."

"A young child like you? No, I'll tell you what: you can spend the night at the potion shop with me and Kotake. There's not much space but at least you'll be sleeping on a proper bed."

"I..." The thought of sharing a room with the witches was a little too much for Link to handle. "No thank you," he said. "Like I said, I've slept in forests and woods before. I'll be okay."

"Are you sure? No, I insist."

"I'm okay," said Link, "really."

She looked dubious but nodded. "All right, then. The tourist centre opens at sunrise. You know where that is? Yes? Good, I'll see you there."

Gathering a bundle of herbs from the ground (she must have dropped them that morning) she turned and walked off in a direction entirely different than the one Link and Tatl had come by.

"Wait," said Link. "Are you sure that's the right way?"

She cackled and kept walking. "_Leaving _the woods is easy. I'm sure you must have noticed that."

So there was magic at work here. Link nodded slowly, digesting this revelation.

He glanced to the side: Tatl had stopped laughing and was toying with a long stemmed flower, bending it and watching it snap back into shape.

Behind him, Koume paused with one foot at the edge of the clearing. She looked back and, catching his attention, said:

"You don't trust people easily, do you?"

"What?" said Link, taken aback.

"Oh, don't take it personally. Trust is a rare commodity nowadays. But still... you seem so young..." She clucked her tongue. "But never you mind that."

With one last wave she set off into the woods and was soon gone.


	19. A Request

**INSOMNIA**_**  
**_**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

While the boy and the witch were busy babbling to one another, Tatl found herself a seat on a nearby rock. With a sigh of relief, she settled down and let her wings relax. She was used to being airborne nonstop, but all the sprinting and chasing of the last few days was beginning to fatigue her. She stared out into the distance, watching the sky turn dark.

A light breeze blew by, and automatically she glanced beside her at the spot where her brother wasn't sitting.

"Tael..." she whispered, looking back towards the sun.

With that thought came the memory the clock tower roof. He'd sounded terrified, the poor boy. And Skull Kid – it was inconceivable that someone so friendly and withdrawn could turn so cruel. Still, it had happened. She shuddered to think what he had done to her brother afterwards...

This thought was followed by a moment of confusion – _what 'afterwards'?_ – which in turn was then followed by ruminations on the subject of time travel. Tael couldn't be in any real danger yet because he still had to be alive in two night's time for the confrontation on the roof. Tael was beyond rescue because according to the freaky kid with the freaky magic flute she couldn't... change something... stop something from... wingshreds this made her head hurt.

Tatl rolled over, glancing at the kid. He was waving and saying something as the witch left, his dorky green cap flapping all over the place with every movement of his head.

She wasn't sure what to make of him. The weirdest little kid she'd ever come across, and after a half dozen generations of Bombers that was really saying something. Besides 'weird', though, there wasn't much else to go on. She ticked it off on her fingers: Ten years old, faint accent, wearing an eyesore of a green costume that made him look like that creep in the town park. Okay with a sword, a little too nice to birds, maybe some sort of a grudge against faeries. Polite, antisocial, cheery, weary, short, tall... (She smirked. Maybe not that last bit.)

None of this really told Tatl anything about him. If only she could ask. She really wanted to know more about his magic flute and his phony morality and the screwed up place he came from, but he'd already made it clear: friendliness, small talk, or whatever was not on the agenda.

"Suit yourself," she muttered, just as the kid turned around and started towards her rock.

"Did you say something?" he said.

She gaped – _Human hearing is not that good_ – and shook her head. "Just yawning," she said. "I haven't had a proper night's sleep since I met you, you know that?"

"Sorry," he said. It sounded more like a reflex than an apology. "I'm pretty tired as well. Maybe we can get some sleep now, would you like that?"

Ooh. "We're finally done dashing around?"

About damn time.

The moon's red glow was faintly visible on the ground, though the snarling face itself couldn't be seen through the canopy. Otherwise, the sun had disappeared entirely.

"That's it for tonight," the boy affirmed. "The boat rides don't start until dawn, so we'll have to wait until then to see if we can get to the other side of the swamp."

Tatl groaned. _If_ they could get to the other side of the swamp; _if_ they could actually talk to the xenophobic Deku tribesmen; _if_ there was actually something magic and stop-the-moon-able in the swamp, and the Dekus knew where it was and they were willing to help. Wild goose chases did not suit her, real geese or not.

"Have I told you how insane this is?" she said, standing up. "Because it is."

Annoyance flashed across the boy's face. He looked away.

**CYCLE 1: PARANOIA  
NIGHT of the FIRST DAY**

Rather than blundering about in the dark, they decided to sleep in the woods. Link wasn't too worried about this: he'd slept in far more dangerous places before, his hearing sharp enough to wake him upon the sound of stealthy footsteps. Besides, as Tatl had assured him, there weren't any predators about anyway.

It _did _occur to him that Skull Kid had ambushed Koume in this very clearing, and it was an unsettling thought. But the imp would have returned to town by now, as that was where they'd found him last time around, and if there was anything he'd learned from the Seven Years War it was the constant refrain, 'you can't change history'. He hadn't been able to turn back the clock, to avoid making the mistakes that had plunged Hyrule into war, not until...

He shuddered, trying to avoid dark thoughts. _Those _dark thoughts, at least. Given everything that was going on a little negativity was inevitable.

"So," said Tatl, "do you sleep sitting or lying down?"

Lying down would be wonderful. "I'll sit. Just in case."

"Suit yourself."

Link considered removing his sword and shield but decided to leave them where they were. Picking a rock with a side flat enough to lean on, he lowered himself to the ground.

"I'll sit here," Tatl said, landing on the same rock. "Do you snore? You'd better not snore."

Her chattiness seemed a little strange, but Link was too tired to mull this further. "All right." He tried thinking of something tactful and quickly gave up. "Please don't talk."

"Me? Talk? What do you take me for, some... okay." She fell silent.

It was warm, Link thought behind closed eyes. A little too warm, a little too humid. Still, after four days' straight without proper rest he felt himself drifting off soon enough. It was all right. It was safe here.

He thought he heard crickets chirping. He thought...

_The witches. Not the ones today, but the ones in that desert temple. Malice. Cold that burned. A paradox. Another face, dark-skinned, cunning. One of the desert people, but not heartless. A victim in the end. What had become of her? There was a statue in that temple. He couldn't remember the face on it. It was important somehow. Rays of light, floating dust._

_Was he asleep yet? He didn't feel asleep. He was still aware of his body, floating there underneath him, ready to leap to its feet and draw its sword at a thought. Like he had before. A cutthroat stalking him through Kakariko's ruins. Vice versa. The smell of something burning. A well. He wasn't asleep. He ought to stop thinking about these things, they would give him nightmares. He could still hear everything, every rodent darting through the grass and every insect calling for its mate._

_Sleep. Please. The alternative was memories. Suffocating. A man on a black horse. A lightning storm. Four hundred and thirteen. A blue-white ball of light. A round shape, a hint of teeth, tendrils pulling at the ground, straining to devour him. Jaws. Thinking, no, he thrashed, no, thinking, sword, no he thrashed, why why why wouldn't sleep come?_

The sound of shifting grass: something approaching.

Link opened his eyes to find Tatl right in front of him, staring at him.

She yelped and backed away. "Wi- I thought you were asleep."

He raised a finger to his lips. _Ssh_. The faerie nodded and dropped onto his shoulder, ending the barely audible buzzing of her wings.

He closed his eyes, trying to find that noise again amidst the same incessant cricket chirping. But whatever had been moving through the grass had either stopped or left; there was nothing but silence.

"Never mind," he said, after another half minute had passed. "How long have I been asleep?"

Tatl shrugged. "You told me to shut up five minutes ago, give or take."

"Five minutes?" It had felt like an eternity. No wonder he was still so tired.

"You woke up pretty quickly," she said.

"I thought I heard... hey, why weren't you asleep?"

Tatl blinked. "What?"

"You were right in front of me," said Link. "I didn't even hear you move. What were you doing, spying on me?"

She laughed. "Me, spy on you? As if."

"Well, why were you watching..." He stopped.

That noise again. There was definitely something moving in the dark, stopping whenever he stopped talking. It was hard to judge but it sounded like it was twenty feet away, thirty at most.

Tatl leaned into his ear. "I heard something," she whispered. "Did you hear that?"

Link peered out into the dark, trying to make something out, but it was no use. The canopy blocked out starlight and moonlight alike, and the yellow glow emanating from Tatl was far too faint to be of any help.

He cocked his head, trying to pinpoint the source of the noise. The overt rustling had stopped, but Link was sure that if he listened hard enough he would be able to make something out – heavy breathing, clothes brushing one another, a foot slowly being lowered. Subtle sounds, but there nonetheless, only audible to those who were actively searching for them. As long as he stayed quiet and controlled his breathing, whoever was out there would have to-

"_Hey!_" shouted Tatl. "We know you're there! You might as well come out!"

There was another bout of rustling – directly in front of them now. Link tensed, pressing his weight onto one leg so that he could spring up and draw his sword at a moments' notice.

A few seconds passed. Then, a quiet voice spoke from the grass:

"Ook."

"_Monkey _noises?" whispered Tatl. "You got us all worked up over a harmless monkey?"

Link held up a hand for silence and peered into the night. This didn't feel right. 'Harmless' seldom went hand in hand with night time sneaking.

He got to his feet, all thoughts of subtlety forgotten.

Tatl yawned and motioned for him to sit down. "It's just a monkey. Go back to sleep, kid."

"It's not a monkey," said Link grimly. His left hand crawled up the side of his tunic, getting ever closer to the blade on his back.

There was a burst of noise and then a small furry figure emerged from the grass, standing on top of a nearby rock. It was a monkey. It waved its arms and let out a short guttural cry that fell somewhere between 'ook' and 'uhk'.

Link took a step forward, glancing around for anything else. But the rustling had stopped as soon as the little primate had left the grass, and no other unusual sounds could be heard. With the uncomfortable feeling of wasted adrenaline, he let his hand fall back to his side.

"_Heeey_," chirped Tatl, "it's I-told-you-so the monkey! He's here to give us our daily hug." She flew over to it, palm outstretched. When no high five was forthcoming, she looked back at Link, remarking, "Looks a lot like the one from this afternoon."

"You sure?" said Link, glad she couldn't see the blood rushing to his face. "I don't see how you can tell them apart."

"Well, no, but I bet I could with practice." She motioned towards the monkey, which was still waving and _ook_ing. "You'd think they'd make it a little easier for us. Wear colour-coded ribbons or something so no two looked the same."

"Don't be silly," said Link. As hushed as they were, the monkey's continued noises were beginning to worry him. It could easily draw the attention of something far less friendly. "What do you think it wants with us?"

"_It_ has a name. I-told-you-so monkey helped us before, didn't he?" She leaned in close, rubbing its head. "Didn't you?"

"_If _it's the same monkey..."

Tatl shrugged. "I bet it is. Maybe it wants to help us again. Hey, maybe it knows somewhere with a real bed. You'd better follow it."

At these last few words the monkey's noises stopped, and it began waving its head up and down rapidly in a rough mimicry of nodding. How very curious. How very human-like.

"Do you think it understands us?" Link wondered.

"Shut up and follow it," said Tatl.

So began another trek through the woods. They stayed close and walked slow in deference to the shadows and that faint, lingering possibility that something lurked between them. Here in the dead of the night, there was no place for the dashing and acrobatics of that afternoon. The monkey led. The boy and faerie followed. That was all.

Nothing was spoken. The monkey, lit by nothing more than the faerie's dim glow, still crept across the forest floor with a certainty so unmistakeable that there was no questioning its sense of direction. No, that was hardly the word. The woods, as Link had come to suspect, twisted and turned so that abstract notions of direction and distance meant nothing; there was no point arguing with the twisted loops and sudden doubling-backs that the monkey led them in because 'lost' is always an oversimplification.

Yes, there was something in the night air that transcended language, but that was okay. In a way, Link found it soothing.

The monkey led. They followed.

Quite some time later, they came to another clearing. Here the the moon's piercing red glow slipped through the canopy and lit the ground below. Now Link saw a small bubbling brook, a few sparse trees with low-hanging branches, and strange little lumps on the ground. As he got closer he realised that they were piles of nuts, leaves, bones. They had been stacked meticulously, a labour of hours and hours.

There were other monkeys up ahead. They looked all alike in the darkness. It was towards them that their guide now scampered, its pace picking up as it neared its brethren. It stopped somewhere roughly in the middle of the others and turned, beckoning for its – guests? prisoners? – to follow.

Link caught Tatl's eye and saw his own confusion reflected in her face. At least she was being quiet, he thought, trying to smile.

They walked forward and the monkeys rearranged around them, forming an impromptu circle around them. Looking around Link could see about a dozen of them, a dozen pairs of beady black eyes following his every step. And, he realised – not sure how it had occurred to him but certain that it was true – there were many more hidden from view, scattered in the trees and shadows.

Link stopped at the centre of the circle and looked around at the assembled monkeys. They all peered intently at him, waiting for something.

"Why did you bring us here?" he said.

His words shattered the silence as effectively as any falling moon.

Their expressions softened. A few of them even turned to each other and exchanged a murmur or two.

"Why are we here?" he repeated.

"Don't bother," said Tatl. "Even if they understood you, they're only going to answer in monkey babble."

There was a sudden movement nearby. The same monkey that had brought them here was now groping around the darkened ground, reaching for something. It hunched its back and tugged harshly at something. It succeeded on the second tug, pulling some plant out in a shower of soil. Cradling its prize in two paws, it shuffled awkwardly towards Link and Tatl on two legs. Reaching them, the monkey held the plant out towards them, palms outstretched, offering it.

"For me?" said Link, confused.

A nod.

Link took the plant from the monkey's hands and turned it over in his. In this darkness he couldn't see colour, only shape. It was some kind of herb, with a soft knotted stem that disentangled into dirty shoots. Or perhaps the other way round: a collection of separate roots that had found themselves intertwined.

"You cannot be serious," said Tatl.

Link looked up. "What now?"

She pointed. The monkey was waving a hand to and from its mouth, miming the act of eating.

"It wants me to eat it?" he said. Without really noticing he raised the herbs towards his mouth.

"_What_ _are you doing?_" Tatl honed in on Link's hand, trying to push it back down. "A strange animal wakes you up in the middle of the night and gives you some funny-looking weeds, and you just _eat them_?"

Link paused, the herb dangling in front of his lips. "Can you tell if it's poisonous?" he asked her.

"Well, its aura is really weird. I haven't seen anything like it before."

"Is it _poisonous_?"

"I don't know, but... look, whatever you're holding, it's not salad leaves. It's definitely something magical. They could be trying to trick you."

Link considered. Maybe the same feeling that had overcome him on the walk here was dulling his judgement, but he sensed a simplicity in these monkeys that couldn't be reconciled with deception; a simplicity that, despite their intelligence, set them very far apart from the deep, emotional, everyday people who had turned dangerous and duplicitous under the desert lord's iron rule.

"They don't mean us harm," he said.

"Oh, for... You trust _them_ more than you trust... Okay. Fine." She ripped a tiny chunk from the herb and shoved it into her mouth. "There," she said between chews. "Now if you die, I die. Happy?"

"Um..."

Link shrugged the question off and, mildly aware that he ought to be more worried about this, took a bite from the plant. It was bitter on first taste, but as he chewed on it a little he became aware of a certain simple sweetness hidden in there. Not enough to overcome the nasty taste, but if he focused on the sweetness enough, it all became bearable. He swallowed, feeling it slide down his throat.

The aftertaste was hard to pin down: it was a little bit like everything, the same ambiguous scent of a crowded market, where people of all manner of races and ages mixed with simple citruses and pungent spices.

The monkeys all murmured in approval. A few of them squeaked at him and motioned towards the ground: _sit down_.

Link sat down cross-legged. Tatl settled on top of his cap, and within seconds was idly flicking its pointy end.

"Well, I don't _feel _poisoned yet," she conceded. "But what the hell was that all about?"

"I'm sure we'll understand eventually," said Link without much confidence, on the off chance it might shut the faerie up.

It didn't. "I doubt it. Knowing how things have been going. Things have been making less and less sense since I got stuck with you. First your crazy time-bending magic, then all this running around the swamp looking for something, but you don't know what you're looking for and you're not sure if it exists or where it is, and now all this middle of the night..."

"Please be quiet," said Link wearily.

Tatl laughed. "'Please be quiet.' What wonderful manners. You said 'shut up' to me before, do you remember that? Or was that one of your rare moments where you're not acting like some kind of holier-than-thou saint?"

"I am not..." Link began. "When have I..."

"Do you want a list?"

A short, sharp shriek silenced them both. The monkey who'd brought them here and given them the herbs was shaking its head and waving its arms placatingly. It _ook_ed again. The body language was easy to read: _stop arguing_.

Through a series of quick facial expressions Link and Tatl somehow managed to negotiate a ceasefire. Then they both looked around at the assembled primates.

"Okay," said Link slowly, hoping they would understand him enough to help. "You brought us all the way here. Why?"

The monkeys seemed to understand; they turned and muttered amongst themselves. After a few seconds one of them let out a stream of garbled syllables, motioning first towards Link and Tatl then to the circle of monkeys and then back again. _We can help you_, perhaps? Or _you can help us_.

"Do you want my – ow – our help?" said Link.

A nod.

Before he could say anything else, Tatl cut in. "What makes you so sure we can help you?"

A different monkey responded with a complex series of cries accompanied by an equally baffling pantomime, pointing first at them then at the sky then drawing circles in the air and some other indecipherable squiggle.

Link shook his head sadly. Charades could only communicate so much. "I don't understand," he said.

The monkey tried again: the same chatter and the same hand signals.

"Didn't you hear him?" snapped Tatl. "He doesn't understand." She glanced at Link, adding in a whisper, "What makes you so sure they understand us?"

"I..." Link shrugged. "It's just a feeling."

She threw her hands in the air. "Big deal. I'm feeling that too, but I'm smart enough to realise that I'm tired as hell and I've just eaten a plant full of goddesses-know-what." She looked back at the monkeys. "Give up! This isn't going anywhere..."

The monkeys were all beginning to talk over one another, all sounding alike, as if they were all saying the same thing in that strange chittery language of theirs – and Link was sure by now that they had a language of their own; it was impossible to imagine otherwise. Their voices spilled one over another, saying the same thing again and again.

"I'm sorry," said Link, "I don't..."

There was no flash of light, no magical buzz or warmth in his stomach. With that same inexplicable sense of certainty from before, Link understood. They were trying to say, _We have been watching you._

(There was no discernible logic, no grammar or syntax, just the unshakable feeling that this was what they meant, that no other meanings were possible.) _We have been watching you. Children do not come to the swamp. We follow you to see if you are friend or stranger._

"Did they just..." Tatl spluttered. "Is it just me or..."

Link gave the faerie a quick nod. "You followed us?" he said, addressing the monkeys.

At this sign of comprehension, they all fell silent immediately. After a moments' pause, a single monkey began chittering from somewhere in the treetops.

With only one voice and no background noise, the message became easier to intuit: _We see the child has knowledge with sword. We see the yellow fly has knowledge with many creatures. Sister-who-led-you-here sees you help the old woman. Sister listens, too. Sister hears you speak of a falling sky and befores that follow afters. You have strange powers, no?_

"This is impossible," said Tatl. She pinched herself on the arm, then frowned. "What the hell did they feed us?"

"How can we help?" said Link.

Another monkey spoke, its voice distant and obscured. _Lately, this swamp, it is filled with poison water. It is bad. Bad for drinking. Bad for bathing. Bad for other animals too._

Another voice, closer, behind them. _All water comes from the volcano. The rain and the waterfall too._

"Above the waterfall?" said Tatl. "You mean on top of the volcano? That's impossible, there's nothing up there. Nobody goes there."

Another voice, belonging to the monkey on a nearby rock. _Brother-who-is-in-peril knows of temple. Every year on longest day, he sees the Deku shamans go there. Temple above waterfall keeps water pure._

Another voice. _If water is bad, temple is bad._

_Brother-who-is-in-peril goes to temple._

_Brother not able to find temple entrance. Temple is only for Deku._

"Only for the Deku scrubs?" said Link. "Were they guarding the entrance."

_No. No guards. Temple is only for Deku. Temple entrance cannot be found by monkeys._

"I don't understand."

The monkey who had brought them here spoke now. _Temple is not important. Brother is captured by the Deku. Brother is in grave danger. Brother needs your help._

"What kind of danger?" said Link.

"This is so surreal," said Tatl. "Look at you! You're having a conversation with a monkey."

_The Deku are angry people. They do not like us because we are not made of wood. You must rescue our brother. Brother is in danger because he is not one of them. He must not die. Please help him._

"They're going to kill him?" said Link.

_Yes._

There was no decision to be made. He couldn't ignore an outright plea for help, especially after these monkeys had helped him find Koume and secure a trip to the other side of the swamp.

"Where is he?" said Link.

_Brother is in a cage. The cage is in the Deku palace._

Tatl glanced at Link. "We were heading there anyway, weren't we?"

"We were," said Link. "I'll help them."

"Well, why not? For once you'll be saving a life worth saving." She flapped her arms to make the point clear.

Link directed his attention to the monkey who had brought them here, the one that was speaking. "I'll try to help," he said. "I don't know what I can do, but I'll try."

A single syllable. _Thank you._

**-oOo-**

The monkeys offered their guests food: nuts, mushrooms, and a fish which Link helped them start a fire for. He had spent the last four days ignoring his hunger, and was surprised at how easily he scarfed it all down.

Tatl seemed similarly pleased, though she assured him she was only eating for the taste.

"I mean, can you imagine a Great Faerie eating?" she added.

"Not really," Link said.

A monkey trundled over with a large clump of the strange knotted herbs they had eaten before. _In case_, its body language said.

"Hey," said Tatl. "I've been around for quite a while, and seen a fair share of thing, but I've never heard of this... stuff before."

It paused, its back half turned, considering the question.

_It is bitter. Few like the taste._

"But it's... I mean, there must be some serious magic to this stuff. It would make for some seriously powerful balms or potions. Someone could make a fortune."

_But who would want such a potion?_, said the monkey.

* * *

**A/N:** I wonder if it's healthy to write chapters on a schedule like this. Probably not.

This chapter exists to address the following two points: firstly, monkeys don't speak English, and as much as fantasy and action/RPGs are about the suspension of disbelief, I figured it might be worth pushing for a little credibility. (If you decided it was telepathy, I have probably failed in my job as adjective-flinger.) Secondly, if Link got any sleep my story title would be even more lame than it already is, and we wouldn't want that, would we?

Next chapter: something vaguely plot-relevant?


	20. Deku Palace Exterior

**INSOMNIA**_**  
**_**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

**CYCLE 1: PARANOIA  
DAWN of the SECOND DAY**

Daybreak over the swamp was a hushed affair. As the sun emerged to the grey east, the clicks and rustles of the previous night were nowhere to be heard. A lone bird call carried through the trees, sweet and forlorn. Every now and then it paused, waiting for another voice to join in chorus, but none ever came, and each time the bird would resume its song with desperate patience.

By this time Link and Tatl were outside the tourist centre, waiting for it to open. They had left the woods as the sky began to take colour, finding as before that the exit was only a minute's walk in any direction. They sat on the embankment, careful not to get too close to the water.

"The sun," said Tatl, toying absently with a reed. "Sunrises are always so gloomy."

Link half-nodded but otherwise gave no sign of hearing. He stared past her, his eyes following a mosquito which hovered above the water's surface some few dozen feet away.

He ran his hands along his clothes, pausing to check for every odd and end attached to it. A money pouch: empty. A glass bottle sitting precariously in his tunic, filled with a handful of dark, tangled herbs: a parting gift from the monkeys. An ocarina lodged so tightly into his belt, it was like the instrument itself didn't want to be parted from him. A wooden mask in the shape of a Deku scrub. A... a four leaved clover? When had that gotten into his belt? He didn't remember ever finding one.

He warily lifted it to his face, examining it. There didn't seem to be anything unusual or dangerous about it. Still, one could never be sure. He set it on the ground carefully.

"Morning, kids."

It was the thickset man from the tourist centre who had given them directions. He walked past them towards the ladder, looking as jovial and as shirtless as he had yesterday. He waved at Link and Tatl as he passed.

"Good morning," said Link, smiling politely.

Tatl waited until the man had gone into the tourist centre. "_Kids_?" she whispered indignantly.

"I'm sure he didn't mean it in a bad way," said Link. "It's an easy mistake to make."

"What? Because I'm small? Hailstones are small and no one ever calls _them _kids..."

Koume showed up a few minutes later, wearing a black shawl identical (sans bloodstains) to the previous day. As she emerged from between the trees she could be seen looking left and right, searching for something. Spotting Link and Tatl on the bank she broke into a delighted smile and rushed towards them.

"The boy and the faerie," she said warmly, pulling Link into an awkward half-embrace. "Sleep well?"

Link and Tatl exchanged glances.

"We're ready to take the boat cruise," said Link.

"Are you, now? Wonderful." Koume brushed her hands against each other. "As I said last night, you can do it for free. Let me go pull the boat in."

She walked to the base of the ladder beneath the tourist centre, and began tugging at a length of rope that stretched along the water's surface. Looking along the rope, Link could make out a boat tied to the other end, decorated with the same faux tribal markings that adorned the tourist centre's interior.

The witch slowly dragged the boat in. After a few minutes, it was close enough to the bank to board without having to step in the acidic water. Link climbed in carefully, finding (to his relief) that it barely rocked when he set foot inside.

Koume slipped inside, saying she would be just a few minutes. Link glanced at Tatl, who was examining the boat with amusement.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

"Oh, nothing." She glanced at him. "Don't you think it's weird that the deck of the boat is so clean? No mud or leaves, no spilt food. I don't think they get many customers."

"Oh," said Link. Now that she mentioned it, he saw the signs she was referring to. "That's too bad."

Tatl rolled her eyes. "'Too bad'. Sure. If you say so."

**-oOo-**

Soon enough Koume returned with a single oar and announced that they were ready to leave. Link watched with some interest as she began to manoeuvre the boat away from the dock.

They started moving down the swamp, propelled by Koume's paddling (and, she said, a healthy dose of magic). The only obstacles to be navigated around were thick clumps of lily pads and the occasional dangling vine smacking against the side of the boat.

They went clockwise around the swamp, giving the central volcano a wide berth. They passed the potion shop and the 'woods of mystery' in quick succession, and soon enough the boat was well past anywhere Link had been so far. Not that there was anything particularly exciting about seeing the same flora and fauna arranged slightly differently.

The witch talked a little as she sculled, pointing out interesting sights, relating droll anecdotes, and generally fulfilling her role as tour guide. Every now and then she would direct a question at her passengers:

"Are you from around here?"

Tatl nodded. "Yeah."

"No," said Link. "I was – I'm travelling. Exploring the world." True, strictly speaking.

"Oh, really?" said Koume. "How are you finding Termina so far?"

"It's... it's nice."

Tatl's eyebrows shot up, but she didn't say anything.

"Hmm," said Koume. "That's good."

Silence. The sound of oar on water.

The boat's path grew narrow, constricted on either side by thick-limbed trees which were pressed into each other so tightly one could almost hear them groaning. They passed underneath a procession of branches, some low enough to take Link's cap off. At one bend a small trickle of water fell freely from an overhanging stone. As it splashed down it sent little bits of dirt and plant matter into the air, giving off a distinctly earthy scent.

Staring hard enough at the water, Link thought he saw murky shapes moving beneath its surface. _Fish?_, he wondered. He found it hard to believe anything could survive in there after all the corrosive rain.

A while later, the witch spoke again. "My sister tells me you buy into this falling moon business."

"Oh, we 'buy into' it, all right," said Tatl. "Sometime tomorrow you'll be 'buying' it too."

Koume looked sceptical but let the subject drop.

"What do you plan to do when you reach the Deku palace?" she asked.

Link shrugged. "I'll work something out. Talk to them, probably."

"Good luck," said Koume.

Silence. The sound of oar on water. A croaking frog. A sudden burst of wings from beneath a tree.

The boat rounded a bend, and a sheer rock wall came into view, spanning from the central island deep into the trees on the bank. Momentarily perplexed, Link stared at the obstacle until he spotted a small cave opening hidden in the morning shadows.

The witch confidently directed the boat towards the narrow opening. "Keep your arms and legs inside the boat," she warned. "It wouldn't do to get your clothes got caught on the sides."

As the boat entered the tunnel it suddenly thumped into something.

"Did we hit something?" said Link, springing to his feet. His sword was close.

"Just a fish," said Koume. "Sit down. You'll hit your head on something."

"Fish aren't that small."

"It's nothing to worry about. Sit down."

Reluctantly, Link complied.

They passed through the watery passage without any further event. It grew dark but never reached pitch black, and as Koume guided them through in silence, Link found himself staring at the walls. He wondered whether the tunnel was natural or whether it had been blasted into the rock. The boat's fit with the passage seemed too perfect to be a coincidence.

After a few minutes they emerged into the southern half of the swamp.

Link was at once struck by how different it was here. Where the vegetation before had been thick and green, here every exposed surface was one of the hues of sunset. Tall orange flowers the size of houses protruded from the swamp water, attracting noisy swarms of insects. Those trees that were not dead had leaves of the same autumnal colours, whilst the latticed rocky walls were covered by a glistening tapestry of red and gold vines.

The water was no longer tinged purple; it was a concentrated purple that bordered on black. With every breath a sharp, vinegar-like scent confronted Link.

"When did the corrosive rain start?" he asked Koume.

"About a month ago," she replied. "Don't blame it all on the rain, though. It's downright pleasant compared to what's flowing down from the volcano."

She pointed further ahead, to where a waterfall crashed down from the central island. The rock behind it had become discoloured by the acrid contents of the water.

"I wouldn't get too close to that. A few splashes and your skin starts peeling. Actually, I wouldn't touch the water at all if I could help it."

Tatl looked down worriedly. "The smell is horrible. Can the fumes kill you?"

"I don't think so. The Deku scrubs live right across from the waterfall are all right."

"And the insects are still alive," added Link.

"I wasn't asking you," said Tatl.

Koume pointed to a spot across from the waterfall, where a waterlogged dock protruded a dozen feet from a tiny patch of dry land. (Solid ground, where it could be seen, never lasted more than a few dozen feet.)

"I'll dock there. It's a minute's walk from the Deku palace."

"Thanks," said Link.

The witch hummed quietly as she steered the boat towards the dock.

"So how do you two know each other?" she asked, glancing back at her passengers.

"Um..." began Link.

He half-smiled, picturing the direct answer: _She helped mug me, then she needed me to open a door._ That might be more trouble than it was worth, though. No need to burden the witch with troublesome details, especially when the circumstances defied explanation to some extent.

But he didn't want to outright lie, either; he felt he owed Koume a little respect: if not for the boat ride and the company, then for the fact that still he compared her and her sister to those other, nastier witches he'd once known. There was no really good answer to the question.

"It's a long story," he said finally.

"Long story," said Tatl simultaneously.

Taken aback, they glanced at each other and quickly looked away.

Koume laughed. "You must be old friends to finish each other's sentences like that," she said. "Am I right?"

"Uh..."

Tatl came to the rescue. "Yeah," she said with a friendly laugh. She gave Link an almost imperceptible shrug, well out of Koume's field of vision. "Was it that obvious?"

The witch smiled. "When you've been around as long as an old hag like me, you get to know a thing or two."

When they reached the dock, Koume pulled the paddle from the water and raised a hand. She mumbled an incantation and the boat slid to a smooth stop.

Link and Tatl disembarked, eyeing the gap between boat and solid ground with some caution. The wooden dock lead to a patch of grass that was only a few inches above water level. The strip of land traced a narrow, winding path into the trees.

"Just follow it down and you'll reach the palace in no time," said Koume. "Now, as for your return trip... do you know how long you'll be?"

"Not really," said Link. "Could you..."

"There are some row boats washed up in those trees. Will that do?"

"Sure," said Link. He had a little experience with that. A few weeks after he'd returned and averted the War, a Zora acquaintance of his had dragged him out to Lake Hylia on a fishing trip. A very one-sided fishing trip, that is: while he had quickly learned to manoeuvre a small canoe, he didn't have the practice or skill to land a fish, certainly not well enough to compete with someone with gills and a lifetime's experience with bare-handed catches. After a few failed attempts, he'd given in and just watched. The Zora put on a display of incredible acrobatics and fluidity – granted, she was just showing off, but it was still a marvel to watch.

"Wait a sec," said Tatl, frowning. "Boats in the trees?"

"We used to hire them out," said Koume. "People liked it, until... well, as they say: never trust a tourist with their own safety."

The faerie snickered. "Wet?"

"Very wet. Enough complaints to stop the rental program." Koume yawned. "My, my. I think I need my beauty sleep. Can I trust you two to find your way from here?"

"Yes," said Link. "Thanks again for your help."

"Not a problem, dear," the witch replied.

Link spun on the ball of his foot and started down the path.

Tatl waited until they were out of earshot. "Do you have to thank _every _single person who does you a favour?" she said.

Link was confused. "It's the polite thing to do."

"Polite?... For crying out loud! Who the hell brought you up? The magical caring and sharing elves?" She zoomed ahead of him and spun around, flying backwards between the trees. "People in the _real world _don't actually go around acting... 'polite'. You make people uncomfortable whenever you do that."

Link frowned, unsure whether she was telling the truth. "I'll believe it when I hear it from someone else."

"Yeah, right. You would have learnt this ages ago if you actually made friends with real people instead of whatever creeps you... hey, wait... do you actually have any friends?"

"I... What kind of question is that?"

She broke into a delighted grin. "Shred. My. Wings. That actually explains _everything_."

"I _do _have friends," said Link indignantly. "Back home. I just choose them wisely."

"You _choose _your friends?" She rolled her eyes. "That's even more depressing. You can't plan stuff like that out, you just take it as it happens. No wonder you're so messed up."

"That isn't true," he said. "You can't just open up to any stranger in the street. Becoming friends with someone puts you at risk. They could take advantage of you, or they could be taken away from you. You..."

"Morbid."

"...should only make friends with people you trust."

"But then... wait, how the hell do you trust someone without becoming their friend first?"

Link had had it with her nonsense. "You talk like you're an expert. How many friends do you have?"

"Ha. More than you can count." She poked her tongue out.

"Oh, really?"

Tatl began ticking them off on her fingers. "Hmm, let's see. There's Tael, of course. And there's Skull Kid – well, before he went insane. And then... oh, look, we're here."

She was still facing backwards as she said this, but Tatl was right: as she spoke they were rounding the last bend and emerging into another water-filled area. A few more of the large flowers protruded from the water, and a handful of large lily pads dotted its surface, but it wasn't the natural features of the area that immediately grabbed Link's attention.

A forbidding wall stood across the water, stretching for a mile in either direction. It was covered in its entirety by angular tribal symbols in red and green paint. On top of it, a hundred feet above the ground, large bright flames burned at regular intervals, so that the jagged spikes atop the wall cast zigzag shadows on the ground below. There was a single opening in the wall, just wide enough to accommodate the pair of guards flanking it. If ever a wall had said _keep out_, this was it.

"So this is the Deku palace, is it?" said Tatl. "Doesn't look very inviting."

Link nodded in agreement.

Floating unhindered on the water were a series of wooden planks. They traced a path across to opening. Link took a careful step onto the first one, and, finding it stable, began walking across.

As Link drew closer to the palace, the guards watched him suspiciously. Feeling their eyes on him, he suddenly felt a wave of nausea. It took him a moment to realise why: it wasn't so long ago that he'd been a Deku scrub himself. Those three days certainly hadn't been the best of his life.

"Are you okay, kid?" said Tatl. "You look a little white."

"I'm fine," said Link. He blinked a few times.

As they drew near he got a better look at the guards.

All Deku scrubs looked alike, insofar as all humans looked alike. There were common features – the disproportionately large head, the bark for skin, the long hollow snout – but everything else varied from scrub to scrub. These ones were what Link thought of as the warrior caste. They sported aggressive red-orange leaves that covered them like a mane, obscuring all but the tiniest patch of eye and mouth. If not for their glowing leery eyes, their faces would have been obscured by shadow.

No doubt they had the same shortness of temper and power of punch that seemed to go with their colours. Link had seen scrubs of this kind shoot nuts hard enough to break bones. It was a far cry from the form he had been trapped in. He'd nearly been mauled by a puppy dog, of all things. That body had been feeble, even for a Deku child. Perhaps not the most baffling decision on the twisted Skull Kid's part, but still Link couldn't help but-

"_Watch it!_"

Link froze.

His foot was still in mid-air, hanging over the edge of a particularly large gap between planks. Numb with shock, he carefully placed it back on solid ground. Another moment and he could easily have fallen into the viscous swamp muck.

"You blasted idiot!" hissed Tatl, swooping into his ear. "It was right there in front of you. _Right there_. Did you zone out again? Are you okay? Are you nuts?"

"I... I must have..." His jaw was hanging open. _How did I not see that?_

"How the hell can someone knock out a speeding bird one day and totally ignore a big, purple, smelly... the next? _How_?"

Link shook his head and said, "Maybe I'm just tired."

"Just ti- oh, why do I bother..." She threw her hands up in the air and went back to looking bored.

They reached the palace entrance soon enough. The guards continued to stare right at them until they were all but a few feet away.

"Halt!" they cried simultaneously. Their voices were raspy, like dead bark.

Link raised his hands in a universal gesture of goodwill. "I need to talk to your leader," he said.

The guards glanced at each other, laughing sharply.

"This is the royal palace of the Deku kingdom," stated the left one.

"This is no place for outsiders," affirmed the right one.

"It's urgent," said Link. "The moon is..."

"Entry to the royal palace is forbidden to outsiders," the left guard interrupted.

"No exceptions," agreed the right one.

"I..." Link nearly shook his head in disbelief, but caught himself before he could make things worse. How could he and Tatl be the only people in Termina taking the end of the world seriously? "The moon is falling! You're all in grave danger."

"The king takes care of his people's problems," said the left guard. "Not outsiders."

"The king has better problems to worry about than the hearsay of a human child," added the right one snidely.

"Better problems?" said Tatl sharply. "What problems?"

"We can help," said Link quickly. "Please. Let us in. Whatever the problem is, I'm sure we can..."

"Entry to the royal palace is forbidden to outsiders," the left guard interrupted.

"No exceptions," agreed the right one. "Except with the express permission of the king."

_Well, that's new._ "How do I get the king's permission?"

"You cannot."

_Ah._

"Just like the Clock Town guards," observed Tatl in a whisper. "You're wasting your time."

"Just a second," replied Link. Then, louder: "Please. I can stop the moon with your help. This is really important."

"Hah!" Both guards folded their arms. "Important to outsiders. Not to the Deku kingdom."

Link turned away. "Sorry to trouble you," he muttered, starting back down the path.

Alternative possibilities were already running through his mind: Perhaps he could sneak into the palace and convince the Deku king of his trustworthiness. But the walls looked impregnable; he didn't have the time to scale them or tunnel through. Perhaps he could search the area himself for whatever he was supposed to find. But how long would that take? He didn't even know what he was looking for. And he had promised those monkeys he would try to help their comrade. Perhaps...

He stepped off the last plank and started into the trees, still lost in thought.

"Wait, wait..."

Tatl zipped down and hovered uncomfortably close to his waist, staring.

"What?" said Link, looking down.

"What about this?" she said, lightly tapping something on his belt.

Link looked down. It was the wooden mask that had fallen from him when he'd lifted the Skull Kid's curse. Its wide yellow Deku eyes started vacantly through the faerie. The mask was hooked loosely onto the side of his belt: strange that it hadn't fallen off after an entire day of running around.

"What about the mask?" said Link.

"You do remember what that is, right?" sighed Tatl.

"Yes... it appeared when I lifted the curse and became... human again."

He picked up the mask and held it up to his face, looking at its lifeless eyes and slightly protruded snout. It _did _strongly resemble how he'd looked as a Deku scrub.

"You just set a world record in understatement. That mask _was_ the curse. Weren't you listening to what the Great Faerie said?"

"Yes, but that was three-"

"Sure, whatever. This mask?" She tapped it for emphasis. "It's essentially the soul of a dead scrub. I don't know where Skull Kid found it, maybe he... maybe he..." A small look of horror crept across her face.

"Go on," said Link quickly.

"Go on? Right. Okay. So when Skull Kid goes to curse you, the mask gets shoved into your face, which any faerie could tell you is the body's number one weak spot for hexes. Then he uses some kind of evil mask magic to bond it to you tightly. The concentrated life essence of the scrub comes into pressurised contact with the vessel of your physical being, the corpulescent humours are carried by the vacuous fluids into... no, wait... the _vacuous _humours are carried by... no..." She frowned and started waving her fingers in the air, drawing imaginary diagrams. "Internal precedes external except after... after calx?... no... oh, screw it. Skull Kid waves his hands, you turn into a Deku scrub. Got that?"

"Um..."

"Anyway – I never paid much attention to the Great Faerie's rambling – anyway, when you broke the curse, you removed the mask from your face, but it should still be just as potent. If you put it back on, you can turn back."

Link blinked, not sure whether she was being serious. "Turn back?"

"You know... into a scrub." She shrugged.

"Why would I want-" He broke off as the utter sensibility of her suggestion hit him – if the guards wouldn't admit a human, maybe they would admit a Deku scrub. "No! I can't... I mean... after everything we went through to break that curse..."

"Don't think of it as a curse," said Tatl, "think of it as a tool. Like you'd use a torch to see in the dark, or a sword to not kill some birds..."

"What if I'm trapped as a scrub? What if we have to go through all that again?"

"First, you won't be trapped. Without the curse bit, it's just a mask. You can pull it off. Trust me."

Link laughed. "Trust you? I don't even-"

"Secondly," continued Tatl loudly, "even if I was wrong, which I'm not – I do remember some of the Great Faerie's lessons, this is beginner stuff – even if I was wrong, you could just play one of those songs of yours to turn yourself back."

"But what if-"

"Thirdly, we ran into your future self before, didn't we? You looked pretty alive and human, didn't you? And you said yourself... wait for it... 'you can't change history'. Isn't that right?"

Link looked away, trying very hard not to think. If nothing else, she was right on the time travel count. He knew all too well how that worked, and nothing he had seen suggested that history could be changed (save, of course, the horrifying, world-rending magic that had returned to him a sliver of his lost childhood, but the raw energy involved in that spell had been the result of exceptional circumstances and could never be repeated). By all rights there was no danger to this. Yet still something inside him insisted that this was a bad idea.

"This is a bad idea," he said aloud, his voice quiet. He flipped the mask over in his hands so that he was facing its smooth featureless interior.

"You're just scared," said Tatl.

She was probably right.

Taking a deep breath, Link put the mask on. It was cool and smelt earthy and damp, and the instant it touched his face he could already feel the slightest crackle of magic against his skin. A split second later there was a loud _crack_ and he felt pain. Pain like a thousand wooden tendrils digging into his face, pressing into every orifice and hardening every vein; pain so intense that for a moment there was no conscious thought and his screaming was nothing but bodily reflex; pain that sent blue coronal circles dancing madly in his field of vision; pain that never seemed to end...

It stopped after half a second. When he opened his eyes, he was viewing the world from a few feet lower. A wooden snout obscured the lower half of his vision. He looked down at his arms and legs, confirming. He was a Deku scrub again.

With a slight bite of panic, he ran his hands across his face, feeling the rough bark which covered it. As he reached the spot where the edge of the mask would have been, he felt a thin line running around his face. Surely that hadn't been there last time around. He scrabbled for a purchase with his fingers, and pulled.

The mask put up a little resistance, but not much: one little tug and it came straight off. Link had a moment of disorientation, and then he was human again, holding a wooden mask in his hands.

"Satisfied?" said Tatl. Her arms were crossed.

"I..." His voice worked. Everything seemed intact. No harm done. "Yes," he said.

Tatl nodded. "Good. Now stop dawdling and put it back on. We have work to do."


	21. Deku Palace Interior

**INSOMNIA**_**  
**_**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

"This is the palace of the Deku kingdom. Only those on official business may enter!"

"...But you may enter to see the humiliation of the foolish monkey who angered our king."

"Go straight down the hall to the throne room."

Entering the palace was easy once Link had put on the Deku mask and transformed back into a tiny wooden scrub. The guards' distrust was gone, replaced with an attitude that was condescending but not unfriendly. The contrast left Link surprised and not a little shocked.

The high walls of the palace continued past the entrance, sharply curving in to form a long narrow hallway. There were small handwritten signs wherever one looked. Some pointed straight ahead to the throne room. Others sat by side corridors and were more warning: 'Palace Gardens – do not enter'. 'Kitchens – do not enter'. Strangely, there were no guards around to enforce the signs. The sun shone freely into the palace, casting shadows from the high walls.

Link headed straight forward. He barely gave the side passages a glance as he passed.

All that time he had spent in Clock Town growing accustomed to this body hadn't been wasted. He was already feeling comfortable again, with its short legs and spherical distribution of weight. He could feel the rumbling of the earth beneath his feet. He could taste the humidity in the air with every pore of his bark-like skin.

"Do you actually have a plan?" said Tatl. The fabric of Link's cap muffled her voice.

He shook his head. It was a work in progress.

"Good. I mean, just making sure I hadn't missed something." She looked at him with amusement. "Wow. It's really weird, you not talking again. Nice, though."

Yes, if there was any aspect of this body he was still stymied by, it was its voice. All this time and he still wasn't able to make any intelligible noises. Because of this he'd been forced to abandon his previous half-baked plans for dealing with the Deku scrubs. So long as the palace's visitor policy remained what it was, he wasn't going to be having any discussions with its king.

There was a narrow archway at the end of the hall. A bright light shone through from the other side. It suddenly occurred to Link that he hadn't seen any torches inside the palace. He wondered how they found their way around at night.

There was a dark, muffled moment as they passed through the archway. Then it ended and Link was surrounded by the murmurs of an enormous crowd.

"Surely the rumours aren't true..."

"I've never been in here before... isn't it amazing?"

"The King is furious! Imagine what he'll do to that forest monster..."

"I heard it ate the princess..."

The throne room was packed full with Deku scrubs. They were so tightly packed together that for a moment Link mistook them for a single pulsing organism. Then he began to make out individual shapes and forms. He was well aware that the scrubs weren't a homogeneous lot, but he was still taken aback by the array of colours he saw: every imaginable shade and texture of wood was represented in the crowd, from healthy red to brittle grey.

They were gossiping in hushed tones, as if worried of standing out. Combined, their quiet asides became harsh and raucous.

"I saw it! The two of them entering the temple at night! But only it returned..."

"Bah! It was obviously using her."

"She was the only heir to the throne. Who is going-"

"Ssh... not in here, the guards will hear you..."

At the room's centre, a giant bonfire crackled away, sending embers into the air where they drifted down like falling leaves. Understandably, the crowd gave it a wide berth, and Link couldn't help but wonder why a people made out of wood would have something so hazardous in their throne room of all places.

On the opposite side of the room, surrounded by attendants on a platform raised high above the crowd, stood what was undoubtedly the king of the scrubs. He was larger than most, an effect exaggerated by the giant hollowed-out seed sitting on his head like a crown. Regal wreaths of forest leaves adorned his neck and limbs.

The king's head turned from side to side. He was scanning the crowd slowly, seeming to take in every face and dismiss it in turn. His gaze stopped at Link. He stared for a second. Then, his eyes narrowing, he opened his mouth and uttered a single imperious syllable that carried clear across the room:

"You!"

Link stiffened. Had he been caught that easily?

The king glared harder. "Yes, you! Are you from around here? I don't recognise you."

Link shook his head, forcing himself to meet the king's gaze. They locked eyes for a fraction of a second. Then, the monarch looked away dismissively.

"No matter. Today, any scrub is permitted in here." The king raised his voice, opening his hands toward the assembled Deku scrubs. "For what are we if not united by danger? Is it not our countless enemies and aggressors who have brought us together and made us strong?"

The crowd yelled and cheered in assent, temporarily drowning out the king's words. Link cocked his head, struggling to hear.

"We all know how devious our enemies are: how they try to spread discord among the people and strike at our very souls. But the terrible events of this week show that things are far..."

Tatl whistled to get Link's attention.

"I think we've found our missing monkey," she whispered, pointing to the darkest corner of the room.

Fenced off in there was a silver furred monkey, bound to a tall wooden pole. It looked exhausted, wearily squirming against its bonds. Some of the crowd were staring at it, waving their fists and jeering madly.

Link let out a slow breath. The other monkeys certainly hadn't been exaggerating about the 'grave danger' their brother faced: to judge by the way he had been publicly strung up, the king had some unpleasant plans for the monkey.

"What do you want to do?" whispered Tatl. "Are you going to free it?"

Link shook his head. The thought had already crossed his mind, but he wasn't sure that he could stage a rescue without having to cut through every Deku scrub in the palace. Besides, even if he could somehow free the monkey from its imprisonment, he would do so without risking any potential cooperation with the Deku scrubs. He still needed their help to deal with the moon, and until then he needed to tread lightly.

"Then what? Nobody here is going to listen to you. What else can you possibly do?"

He shot her a meaningful look. _We wait._

On the other side of the room, the king continued to orate.

"Our princess – my daughter – was a creature of peace. She was always looking for scrublings to help feed, for plants that needed tending. Was it not she, one dry season, who tried to bring home a wild animal as a pet?"

The crowd murmured in assent.

"Yes, the princess was a trusting soul." His eyes darkened. "Perhaps too trusting for her own good. This monkey..." - all heads turned - "...was responsible for the putrid rain that is destroying everything around us. It was the one who tried to enter the sunken temple, so that it could finish the foul deed that it and the rest of our enemies started. Only the royal family can find the entrance, so it tricked our princess into leading the way. And when they got inside..."

There was a respectful silence that lasted a few seconds.

The king raised his head. "Every day I wish we didn't need these walls. Every day. But look! Once again the other races prove that they cannot be trusted. We have no choice. Until those who would seek to destroy us and burn us to cinders are long buried, this is how the world will be! So we must fight back!..."

The crowd roared so loudly that Link couldn't make out what the monarch said next. He turned his head, trying to catch a few stray words.

"Those who harm our kind... be made an example... those who _murder _our... must be punished!"

"_Hear!_" yelled the crowd deafeningly. Then came a steady, angry chant, starting from one corner of the room and swelling until all the Deku scrubs in the room were shouting as one: "_Pun-ish-ment! Pun-ish-ment!_"

All eyes swivelled to stare at the bonfire in the centre of the room, which suddenly acquired a whole new meaning. If Link had a real heart at this moment it would have jumped a beat.

"_Pun-ish-ment! Pun-ish-ment!_"

The sheer malevolence of the crowd's fervid chanting was nauseating. Numbly horrified – _no, you've seen worse_ – horrifically numb, Link turned and walked out.

He turned into the first side corridor he passed and didn't stop until the sound of the crowd was muffled.

Her wings buzzing loudly, Tatl caught up to him a few seconds later.

"Are you all right?" she said immediately.

All right? He could almost taste Kakariko burning to the ground.

Link ducked into the nearest alcove he could find and ripped off the transformation mask, exhaling violently as its magic was reversed. "They're going to kill it," he said the moment he could speak again. "They're... this is barbaric! Are they even giving it a fair hearing?"

"Keep it down," hissed Tatl. She shot him a meaningful look. "There could be guards anywhere in here. If they catch you in here..."

Lowering his voice, Link pressed on. "I've known Deku scrubs before. Friendly, rational... But these ones, they're just..."

"Bigots?" Tatl offered. "Numbskulls?"

He exhaled through his teeth. "I came all this way for their help, and instead they slam the door in our faces... But if anyone knows what we're supposed to find in the swamp, it's them. We need their help."

"Yeah, yeah, you've only said that a dozen times before."

"And then I promised the other monkeys I'd help their... 'brother' out. But..."

The faerie stifled a yawn. "Sheesh, you're boring. Look, kid, you can stand here all day stating the obvious, or you can get a move on. I vote 'get a move on'. Stop whining and make up your mind."

Stripped of all the snark, it was something Navi would have said. _Listen, Link, he __wants__ us to second guess ourselves, to worry about these little things._ _Weigh your options, pick what feels right, and worry about it later._ _Any decision is better than no decision._

"Okay," said Link, "okay. I can't talk to the king as a scrub because I can't talk as a scrub. If I leave the Deku mask off, they'll just kill me too, or at least try to. What does that leave? The swamp is too big to search in two days."

"What about this temple that everyone was talking about?"

"We can't be sure. If anyone is sure it's the scrubs."

"Talk to the monkey."

"The ones from last night? They would have told us if they knew anything."

"No, I said '_the _monkey', kid! The one that's about to get cooked medium-rare! The Dekus seem dead convinced then it's tortured their princess and been inside their secret temple and all that. I bet it knows all their secrets. Or at least some of them. And unlike the scrubs, I bet it'll talk to us. You still have that magic herby stuff, don't you?"

"That..." He thought it over for a few seconds. "That's actually not a bad..."

A triumphant smirk. "I believe the word you're looking for is 'good'."

Link shrugged slightly. "It's a good idea," he said. "But it's being held in plain sight. There must have been a few hundred scrubs in that room at least."

"Screw stealth. Why not just free it?"

"But if we charge in and free the monkey and it doesn't know anything, then we'll definitely have blown our chances with the scrubs."

Tatl shrugged. "You think of something, then."

The monkey had been shrouded in darkness. If they could get close, they might be able to avoid detection. "We just need to get into the enclosure without being seen." How _had_ they gotten it behind those bars? He hadn't noticed a gate of any sort. "Maybe there's a back entrance."

"Let me check. Beats listening to you ramble."

Tatl took to the air before Link could respond, flying directly vertical until she blended in with the sky overhead.

Link opened his mouth to call her back, then caught himself. There could be guards anywhere nearby. He stuck his head out of the alcove, looked carefully both ways, then receded. He wondered what he ought to do if a guard approached. Put on the mask and act lost? Or pull out his sword and scare the guard into silence?

He took to staring at the walls, waiting.

Tatl returned a few minutes later.

"These people really don't believe in ceilings," she remarked, setting down on Link's shoulder. "The palace looks like honeycomb from up there. Pretty neat."

"What about the throne room?"

"Yeah, there's a way into the monkey cage. Prison. Whatever. We need to cut through the... courtyard?... and a few long hallways. I can show you the way. There's a handful of guards, but they shouldn't be too much trouble for you if you're as good with that sword as..."

"I'm not killing anyone," interrupted Link. Defending oneself was one thing; unnecessary violence, another.

"What? Okay..." She looked dubious. "I guess you _could_ sneak past them if you really wanted to. They don't look too bright. Do it with your Deku mask on, just in case you do get caught. But are you sure?"

"Sure about wh- yes, I _am_ sure."

"Okay, fine. I don't care." She swatted at him (a gesture he found more ironic than anything). "Go on. What are you waiting for?"

"You're still standing on me," said Link.

"So?" said Tatl.

With a shrug, he took the mask from his belt and pressed it into his face. The magic took hold, and he almost let out a pained yell as the tendrils of magic took hold and spread through his body, turning flesh to wood wherever it touched.

Tatl hopped off his shoulder with a dazed grin. "That was way too fun."

Link shot her a look.

"Okay, okay. Follow me."

With a playful smile, Tatl zipped down the hallway, moving just fast enough to leave Link trailing behind.

It was surprising how _quiet_ he could be in this body. By all rights the stumpy legs and waddling gait should have made it impossible for a Deku scrub to sneak past anyone, but Link found himself able to slide forward on a single leg for short stretches of time, covering distances quicker and with much fewer steps than he otherwise would have been able to (and weighing virtually nothing didn't hurt either). In short, amused whispers Tatl described his movement as 'like a ninja skating' – no doubt more insulting faerie slang.

Tatl constantly dipped up and down, peeking above the walls and then dropping back to where Link could see her. She led him through a zigzag progression of corridors and unused rooms.

All of a sudden she stopped next to a bend in the passage. "Scrubs ahead," she whispered. "Two guards and some kind of gardener."

Link stuck his head around the corner. Up ahead was a well-tended courtyard, with neat rows of flowers and bushes stretching out from one side of the room to another. Two guards paced back and forth on opposite sides of the room, armed with spears and stern gazes. Off to one side, a third scrub was carefully pruning the larger bushes. His scissors didn't seem especially sharp, but he could be concealing a weapon underneath his leafy rags. There were rows of hedges near the walls, which could potentially provide cover.

It took Link three seconds to see all of this. Then he pulled his head back, and nodded to Tatl.

"Okay. Get to the far side. _Quietly_." She touched a finger to her lips to emphasise the point.

Link rounded the corner and made a beeline for the nearest hedgerow. He paused for a second, waiting to hear if the guards noticed. Then he crept forward, hugging the hedge until it came to an end.

He chanced a quick look around the edge. There was a line of bushes a mere twenty feet away from his position, but one of the guards was facing in his general direction. He couldn't expose himself yet.

Tatl hovered anxiously beside him. She opened her mouth as if to say something. Link cut her off with a shake of the head.

There was a loudsnap from the other side of the courtyard. Link peeked again, saw the gardener busying away at a rose bush and the guard turning to look. He seized the distraction and dashed across the gap, coming to a halt only when he was well behind the next set of bushes.

The rough voice of a guard: "Did you hear that?"

Another guard: "Hear what?"

"Never mind."

Footsteps crunched across the grass towards the gap Link had just crossed.

Keeping himself calm, Link walked away from the noise and towards the other and of the bushes. Any noise his feet might have made was dampened by the soft dirt underfoot.

He reached the end of the row and peered around. The guard was walking towards the opposite end, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. When the guard stepped past the bushes there would be nothing between him and Link.

Link retracted his head. With the same part of his mind that guided arrows through headwind, he pictured the guard continuing along the path at the same speed and started counting. One. Two.

On 'three' he stepped out from his hiding spot, just as the guard stepped behind the bushes and out of sight. Careful not to draw the attention of the other guard, he walked with even footsteps to the next hedgerow.

He didn't slow down once he was behind cover. The exit was in clear reach, and with one last glance for prying eyes he sneaked out of the courtyard and into an adjoining hallway. Tatl waved him forward, glancing anxiously back.

Once they were out of earshot she exhaled loudly.

"Okay, we're clear," she said after a pause. "Straight down the hall. Let's go."

Link held up his hand – _not just yet_. He slipped into a side room that was packed with crates. A single crate was missing its lid; it was filled with spearheads. Ignoring this, he patted down his tunic, searching for something.

"What are you doing?" said Tatl. "The longer we stay still..."

He found what he was looking for – the glass bottle he'd kept the monkeys' herbs in. Opening it slowly so not as to make any noises, he pulled out a handful of herbs and popped them into his snout-mouth.

He offered a tiny piece to Tatl. She winced as she ate it. "Hell of an aftertaste. Are we ready now?"

Link nodded.

They stepped back into the hallway, followed it down, and, soon enough, arrived back at the throne room.

It took a moment for Link to reorient himself: this time they weren't standing amidst the seething crowd but rather in the dark enclosed area where the monkey was. The Deku scrubs were still amassed on the other side of the bars, waiting for their king to talk. The king stared past the crowd with a distracted look.

The monkey was tied to the pole so that it faced the crowd. Staying in the shadows, Link moved until he was directly to its left. He squeaked as loudly as he dared, trying to get its attention.

After a few unsuccessful tries, Tatl groaned and flew past the monkey, directing its attention towards Link.

The monkey strained its neck towards him and blearily refocused its eyes. After a few seconds a glare of recognition flashed across its face, and it uttered a few short squeaks. The herbs had already taken effect enough for Link to get the general idea: _You are wrong! What you say is wrong!_

It took Link a moment to understand – of course the monkey thought he was one of its captors; he was a Deku scrub.

"It thinks you're one of them," whispered Tatl. "Want to enlighten it?"

Link shook his head. He met the monkey's eye and gave it what he hoped was an earnest look.

The monkey looked suspicious still. It muttered: _You keep say I kidnap your princess. How many times you say it, no matter. She will not come back. I have no more to say to Deku scrubs._

Tatl folded her arms. "Kid," she whispered, "I hate to break this to you, but you can't speak if you're a Deku scrub and that monkey isn't talking if it thinks you're a Deku scrub."

Link nodded and waved her forward.

Tatl approached the monkey, keeping her voice low. "Hey there," she said. "We're not actually scrubs. You can talk to us."

The monkey didn't bother speaking; it just stared at Link with an expression of incredulity to rival the faerie's best.

"Kid, take off the mask. I'm not doing all the talking here."

Link hesitated. There was only so much he was prepared to risk when at any moment a scrub might turn and spot him. Still...

He stepped back so that the raised ground shielded him from as much of the crowd as possible. Making sure the monkey was still looking, he reached for the edges of the mask and pulled. The moment he felt the rush of departing magic he pressed the mask back in place. Pain – and yet he did not make a sound.

The monkey made a startled noise that could only be translated as '_whoa_'.

"Hmph," said Tatl.

_How did you do that?_, it asked. Then, _How did you get in here? Only the guards have come in here!_

With an inward groan, Link resolved to work out how to his this body's voice. He was about to pantomime sneaking past the guards when he realised he was still carrying some of the tangled herbs with him. If they could dispel the communication barrier in one direction, then why not the other?

As soon as he pulled out the bottle, the monkey's eyes widened and it let out a new string of jabber. _Where did you get that?_

Tatl snatched a few herbs from the bottle and flew up to the monkey, carefully feeding them into its mouth.

"A bunch of smelly monkeys asked us to help you," she said, returning to Link's side. "And let me tell you, it was a lot of trouble getting in here. You'd better have something we want."

_What? My brothers asked for your help?_ _I am terribly sorry. Can you cut me free?_

Tatl glanced at Link, who shook his head and squeaked. He'd been considering this for the last few minutes. Even if he didn't need to ally with the Deku scrubs, he couldn't protect the monkey and fight his way out of the palace at the same time. The unarmed scrubs in the crowd alone would be enough o make things very difficult.

_I see._

The monkey's response gave Link a start. Had his little gesture really communicated all that?

_You need to give a message to the scrubs. There is still time to save their princess. Soon she will fall victim to a monster, but if they act now they can save her! _The herbs seemed to make the monkey's meaning even clearer.

"Monster?" said Tatl. "For real?"

_Yes, yes! A hideous thing, born of superstition and fear. Its power was more than either of us could contend with. I was lucky to escape. But it has to be the King. You have to tell the King, not any other scrub. Nobody else knows how to reach the monster's lair._

The faerie gave Link a meaningful look. "Power, eh? Say, this monster wouldn't happen to have a magic... moon stoppy thing..."

The monkey looked at her blankly. _Please, you must give my words to the Deku king. Tell him to believe me!_

Link tried testing the bounds of the herbs' effect. He squeaked, thinking hard about the scrubs' refusal to allow him entry as a human.

A crestfallen whimper. _Then I shall die in vain._

Link grimaced – or rather, he tried to grimace and found his snout didn't move – and looked away. All this way and still no options.

Tatl coughed. "Uh... I think you're both overlooking the obvious."

They both looked at her obliviously.

"Oh, come on, you two," groaned Tatl. "Kidnapped princess? Fearsome beast? Treasure, even? Sure, kiddo here..." - she slapped Link on the side of the head - "...is no knight in shining armour. But still, this is way too perfect to pass up. You have a sword, right? It'll beat standing around waiting for the moon to, you know..."

Link squeaked and nodded.

Tatl broke off and smiled. "See? Told you you'd come around."

The monkey looked concerned. _You would risk your life for the sake of strangers?_

Link shrugged. The world was full of strangers.

_Then thank you for choosing to help. By the way... who are you?_

"_Pun-ish-ment!_" On the other side of the bars, the crowd had spontaneously launched into another round of their chant. Some of them were looking at the monkey, but none of them seemed to spot Link and Tatl in the shadows.

The monkey's chittering grew anxious. _Whoa! Never mind, that's not important. Just listen to me!_

"I _am _listening!" hissed Tatl.

_I was trying to find out about the poison in the swamp, so I went to Woodfall. That's above the waterfall, right at the volcano's peak. The Deku princess came with me. She was more trusting than the rest of the scrubs put together. She raised the sunken temple. We went inside. The temple is supposed to be a sacred place. A purifying place. It wasn't as it was supposed to be; it was decayed, falling apart, full of the same poison water. But neither of us thought it had become a monster's lair..._

_I didn't see it, but I heard the princess scream. And the chanting. A horrible chanting, like a thousand voices, all of them mocking me. I tried to follow, I did. But I had barely followed it for a few seconds when I felt something slice across my back, as fast as a lightning storm. If it had wanted to kill me it could have. Instead it made me afraid. I ran. I left the temple sinking back into the water and ran until the scrubs found me._

"How do we get inside?" said Tatl.

_Go to the volcano peak. The scrubs built an altar there, many generations ago. Stand there and... wait... you will need an instrument. Something loud, something that makes a lot of noise. The princess brought Deku pipes with her. They were like cones made of wood._

Link looked down at his ocarina, remembering how it had transformed into a set of blaring horns that night on the rook of the Clock Tower. He nodded, feeling quite certain that was what the monkey meant.

_You have one?_ The monkey looked surprised but didn't press the issue. _All right. The princess stood on the altar and played a melody to open the temple. She called it the 'sonata of awakening'. She said it could raise anything from the veil of slumber. Listen closely..._

Its next syllables didn't translate at all – all Link heard was a series of 'ook's and 'eek's. For a moment he thought the herbs' effect had suddenly worn off. Then he realised the monkey was singing. He gestured, asking the animal to start again. The monkey nodded, paused, inhaled, and began.

Link closed his eyes, concentrating on each note. The song was simple enough, the kind of uninspired court music that coloured his memories of Hyrule Castle. But there was something underlying it, a tiny piece of fragmented emotion caught in the web of notes just firmly enough to be heard. Something in the song resonated with Link, but he wasn't sure exactly how or why and the thought just made him unsettled.

The monkey repeated the song. When it reached the end for the second time, it paused. When it didn't resume, Link realised something was amiss. He had been listening so intently that his senses had failed him – the noise of the crowd had stopped.

He opened his eyes and turned to see the scores of Deku scrubs in the throne room all staring at him and the monkey.

The silence that followed was the deathly kind.

"Everyone! Did you hear that?" shouted the Deku king. Link couldn't see him from where he stood but he could imagine the look on the monarch's face all too well. "This melody, which only the Deku royal family knows... from the lips of that vile beast there!"

The crowd collectively gasped.

"This proves the foolish monkey deceived the princess and entered the temple! Everyone! There is not a shadow of a doubt any more. Stoke the fires! Let the monkey's punishment commence!"

The monkey moaned._ I had always hoped for a quick death._

Several guards were pushing through the crowd towards the enclosure, their eyes fixed on Link. One of them pulled out a key and inserted it into something hidden from view.

Tatl gulped. "You got a plan there, kid? Because I think we're in serious trouble."

_You look like one of them_, said the monkey. _They won't hurt you._

"Good enough for me," said Tatl. "See you soon, kid. Don't die!" She zipped straight up and out of sight.

There was the click of a locking mechanism, and the guards pulled open a gate concealed in the bars. They marched towards Link, making sure to cut him off from the back entrance. Link raised his hands slowly.

"This one was conspiring with the monkey, sire!" one shouted. "Should we kill him?"

"No," said the king, loud enough for all present to hear. "That scrubling forced a confession from the monkey, so it is no traitor. I commend you for your service to the kingdom, scrubling." He waved the guards forward. "Throw him out for trespassing."

Rough hands grabbed at the edges of Link's tunic. He didn't resist as they led him away.

_Find their princess!_, the monkey called after him._ End this madness!_ _And tell my brothers and sisters they are not to blame!_

* * *

**A/N:** First anniversary ^_^ *party streamer*

With this chapter I rushed out the last third or so - I find dialogue flows more easily than most other action, but it's a pain to go over and I just couldn't be stuffed. Lazy, I know. Expect to see some movement away from the swamp in the next few chapters. If you're leaving a review, answer me this - how would you like to see the dungeons done? There will definitely be no '_Link pushed the sliding block onto the blue button and made the eye thing open so that he could shoot it to light the torch and unlock the door_'. I'm not planning on lingering on the dungeons too much: maybe a few droll architectural descriptions, a little combat, and a little bit of banter.

Oh, and I know I'm a few years behind the ball on this, but: Okami. Wii/PS2/whatever. Play it.


	22. The Sunken Temple

**INSOMNIA**_**  
**_**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

**Woodfall  
The Southern Swamp**

In the centre of the swamp there was a volcano that stretched high above the trees. Its sides were steep and unforgiving; the only way up was via a treacherous path that began near the Deku palace and wound dizzyingly back and forth. Those reckless enough to brave the path found themselves inside the volcano's mouth, a circular basin one mile in diameter full of steaming water. The scrubs called this place Woodfall.

It matched Link's expectations almost exactly. The air was hot, humid, suffocating. The pollutants in the water were even more concentrated here than in the lower swamp. Its stench filled the air, masking all but the most pungent of other smells. Despite the unforgiving conditions, the area still thrived with insect life and thing reedy plants stained purple by the corrupted water.

A series of aging planks were suspended above the water, forming a ramp that traced a slow spiral around the volcano's rim. It was along this rickety path that Link and Tatl made their way, stopping only to discourage the overgrown insects that called this place their home with a few menacing waves of the sword.

At the top was a raised wooden platform, an altar of sorts. Standing here, facing the centre of the basin, Link donned the Deku mask. He raised his ocarina to his snout and didn't flinch as it blossomed in his hands into a set of wooden horns.

"I wonder why that happens," said Tatl. "I mean, it's damned convenient, but you have to wonder... I mean, whoever made the flute must have been sitting around all day, going 'what if a Deku scrub tries to play it?'... you know what I mean?"

Even if he had vocal cords at the moment, Link would still not have replied. After some of the things he'd done with the ocarina he doubted he'd ever understand how it worked.

He closed his eyes and played the melody the monkey had called the 'Sonata of Awakening'. Being more plant than animal, he didn't even need to stop to inhale.

As soon as the last note echoed across Woodfall, there was a deep rumble from beneath their feet. For a fleeting instant Link wondered if the volcano was erupting. Instead, ripples began to emanate from the centre of the water's surface.

With a swell, a shape emerged from beneath the muck. It was large and dark and rectangular and entirely obscured, and as it rose the water slid effortlessly off its surface, crashing down as roaring waves and a hissing purple mist that rose into the air and slowly settled. Only then, with the last vestiges of toxic water trickling down its sides, could Link see it for what it was: a great stone ziggurat, covered in intricate carvings and stained a deep purple-brown by the water it had been submerged in. The scrubs' sunken temple.

"Flashy," said Tatl. She began to add something, then stopped, shrugging. "Come on, let's get this over with."

Navi would have been thrilled. She had always been fascinated by secret places: by the sacrosanct touch of untrodden ground, by the enigma of uncharted territory. If she was here with Link right now, she would be hovering beside him with an awed smile on her face, whispering, _Just imagine, Link – besides the Deku scrubs, we'll be the first people to set foot inside here..._

Link spied a single door directly in front of him, framed by forbidding faces so perfectly carved they seemed to leer from the stone. There was a small flat landing in front of it. No doubt this was the sole entrance to the temple.

The altar had a Deku flower, naturally. Amused without knowing why, Link stepped onto the plant, letting its petals and vines swallow him up and spit him out like it was second nature. Straight away he was drifting across the chasm between altar and temple entrance, held aloft by nothing but a pair of thin pink flowers that rapidly deteriorated with every passing moment. He dropped onto the landing with just a few feet to spare, worried only that he wasn't feeling worried enough.

"Nice," said Tatl. She was already starting into the blackness of the temple entrance. "Come on! This should be fun."

Link pulled off the Deku mask and stowed it into his belt. "Slow down," he said, stumbling slightly as his mind readjusted to human legs. "We have no idea what's up ahead."

"Some princess-eating monster, big deal," said Tatl. "You've got a sword, right? We have nothing to worry about."

"Wouldn't you rather be _behind_ the boy with the sword?" replied Link.

"I can't hear you."

"I said, wouldn't you rather-"

"Sorry, can't hear you. If only you were walking faster."

The floor was slippery, still covered with traces of the putrid swamp water that they had seen draining out of the temple. Mixed with the sharp smell of the polluted water was a faint mouldy musk, just strong enough to be perceptible.

The passage ended, and they were standing on a raised platform above a vast antechamber. An eerie green glow covered the room, emanating from a recess in the ceiling that might have provided natural light. The walls were rough and moss-covered, except for where they were covered with carvings. A few were merely scowling faces, but many others depicted Deku scrubs of bygone centuries. Here, a lone scrub using a flaming torch to fend away a pack of felines; there, a group of scrubs hunting a pair of worm-like behemoths, their spears curving in mid-flight.

Link motioned at the carvings. "Do you see those?"

"What, the stick figure drawings?" Tatl shrugged. "So they decorated their temple tastelessly. It's not a crime."

"Do you really think the scrubs built this place?" Even after only a minute inside this temple, he felt a sense of calm, controlled power from these walls. He couldn't quite reconcile that with the tempestuous tribespeople he'd seen earlier today.

"I don't know, who cares?"

Ignoring the long tree trunks twisting from floor to ceiling, the room was sparse and symmetrical. On the opposite side was a similarly raised platform, with a long ladder descending from it to the ground, where the light barely shone. Link glanced over to the side and found a matching ladder there.

Without hesitation he started down it, sliding down in bursts of three rungs at a time.

Tatl followed him, looking confused. "Do you know where you're going?"

"No. But this isn't it."

"Okay. So long as we're _both_ lost..."

He reached the final half-dozen rungs and hopped off the ladder. As soon as he had landed on the waterlogged floor he sensed movement in the shadows around him. He crouched, glancing left and right for distinct shapes amidst the darkness.

"What? What is it?" said Tatl. Then, a moment later: "Over there!"

Link turned and stared hard into the shadow she was pointing at. After a moment, he spotted it – two faint circles of light. Eyes. No sooner did this register than were the eyes gliding towards him. He drew his sword and pointed it at the creature, whose shadow he could now make out against the green lit tiles. Perhaps it was the trick of the light, but it appeared to be nothing but shadow.

Tatl spoke again. "It's a blackboe. They're like little balls of darkness, creatures of pure magic. They don't like light very much, but I guess this place doesn't get much light when it's underwater."

"Dangerous?"

She looked around. "Not with all the light in here."

"But it's nearly pitch black."

"_Nearly_. Not enough for them."

Link backed away from the creatures and turned, making his way across the room.

About halfway there he heard something else, a scuttling noise from behind one of the warped tree trunks in the centre of the room.

"Do black... blackboes sound like that?" he asked.

"No," said Tatl. "Sounds like a bug to me."

Link nodded. That was what he'd thought too.

A giant spider moved into view, facing Link and Tatl. All eight of its eyes seemed to stare at them, and it crouched, if such a word could be applied to an eight-legged arachnid, bending forward so that its skull-covered abdomen was in plain sight.

Link levelled his sword at it. "Stay away," he said loudly.

The Skulltula began creeping towards them, slowly and methodically.

"I am not food," he tried again.

"Uh, kid?" said Tatl quietly. "I don't think it's listening to you."

Of course it made no difference; even if some part of the Skulltula's primeval mind understood his message, these predators saw the rest of the world as prey. In fact, Link was already quite sure how this would turn out for the spider, but there was no harm in trying.

Link's eyes tracked the spider as it drew closer. It was twenty feet away. Fifteen.

It lunged and Link dropped to one knee, bringing up his shield with his right arm and bracing for impact. With a _thunk_ the spider rebounded, and Link stepped forward and lopped off two of its legs with a single swipe. It collapsed onto one side, and he raised his sword for a clean blow to the belly before changing his mind, hopping back a few paces.

"I cannot believe you," said Tatl, as the Skulltula regained its footing and scuttled back a few steps. "These things don't give up. You're going to have to kill it."

"Maybe," said Link. Giving the wounded spider a decent berth, he kept moving across the room. "Maybe not."

"You were about to kill it. Why did you – wait, is this about those stupid birds?"

"No!" said Link hotly. "I'm-"

"_Look out_!"

If it wasn't for the faerie's warning Link would probably have been knocked out. As it was, he came to a half just in time to see a second Skulltula rocket down two feet in front of him, controlling its own descent with a thick rope-like strand of silk. It was an ingenious method of attack, he marvelled in a moment of shocked detachment. Silent, even to Link's practised ears. The spider had learnt to use its own sheer weight as a weapon.

The initial moment of shock meant that he didn't notice himself stepping forward, didn't notice the way he rammed the Skulltula, sending it spinning on its silken thread, and drew his sword. By the time his mind had caught up with his body, he was already pulling his sword out from the spider's gut. Pure reflex.

"Gross," said Tatl. She sounded pleased.

In his peripheral vision he saw a more spiders dropping down from the ceiling. Somewhere to his left, he heard the scuttling sound of arachnid legs on stone. All in all there were at least a half dozen Skulltulas in this room alone.

"Something's not right here," said Link.

"I'll say. You have no problem killing little spiders, but one humongous bird and you go all soft."

"No, I mean the Skulltulas. I've never seen them hunt in groups." He slowly stepped forwards. The spiders were approaching from all directions, forming a loose circle. He was still only halfway to the ladder.

"So they share their food. Big deal. How about you slaughter a few more?"

Link winced. "'Slaughter' is..."

"Whatever you want to call it." Her face brightened. "Hey, make it look cool and I promise not to call you a hypocrite."

Before the circle could tighten Link broke into a sprint. The spiders all reacted instantly, switching with vicious rapidity from slow stalking movements into all-out dashing.

Link kept running, aiming for the gap between two Skulltulas. They lunged as he passed between them, evidently trying to pin their prey between them, but instead met the flat of his shield and the tip of his sword respectively.

He surged onwards – not turning around; he already knew the damage – shoved sword and shield back into their resting places on the back of his tunic, and leapt onto the ladder. Spindly hairy legs scraped across his calves, but they didn't find any purchase and within a few seconds Link was safely climbing away.

"Why are there so many spiders in here?" he asked again. "Isn't this the Deku scrubs' temple? Don't they clean it out?"

Tatl shrugged. "There's supposed to be a monster living in here, so they can't have done a very good job."

"Wasn't this entire temple underwater a few minutes ago?" He reached the top of the ladder and walked towards the door. "It's still wet. How could the Skulltulas have been living in the temple while it was filled with swamp water?"

"Don't ask me."

"It just doesn't make sense." Link swung open the door, blinked with some relief as his eyes registered that the next chamber was a lot brighter, and stepped through. "Hmm... do you think there might be some kind of magic in place? Something that stops the temple from being entirely flooded when it's hidden beneath the surface?"

"What's with all the questions, kid?" said Tatl. "There isn't going to be a quiz afterwards."

The ground was dry: this was the first thing Link noticed. Either that door was waterproof, or there was an enchantment at work in this temple when it was hidden beneath the volcano's waterline.

This chamber was perfectly square, but beyond that everything about its layout was chaotic and organic. The wall was dotted with branchlike outcroppings that seemed to have grown straight through the walls from adjacent rooms. A pool of foul-smelling purple water occupied most of the floor space. Twisted trunks of wood curved out from and back into the water, and large, flat plants with fleshy toothed leaves sat upon its surface. He had the strong feeling the plants were carnivorous, but didn't feel like testing this theory.

There was noise, too, subtle but impossible to miss. At first he wasn't sure what it was that was reverberating so deeply through the floor and walls. Then he began to make out the feverish rhythm of a drum. Above it, voices were chanting and shrieking in fierce syncopation. The sounds were distant and muffled, but Link could sense the sheer malice they carried. It was as if hundreds of people were surrounding them, seething with hatred.

"Do you hear that?" he said.

"I hear it, all right," said Tatl. "Freaky as hell."

"Could it be the monster?"

"Don't ask me."

Link nodded, and looked around. Parts of the room were inaccessible without touching the unpleasant-looking water, but there were still a couple of doors within reach.

"Which way do we go first?" he wondered.

"How the hell should I know?"

Link wheeled to face her. "I just want a little friendly advice! Or is that too much to ask?"

"I..." Tatl's voice ground to a halt. She stared at him, wide-eyed, then backed away, casting her eyes to the ground.

Link blinked in surprise. Then he heard his voice echoing across the room. Had he been shouting? His weight was forward; his fists were clenched.

It wasn't like he was asking for spiritual guidance or anything. All he wanted was the occasional useful observation, the occasional bright idea. _Look, that door has many more hand prints on it than the others... Link, the tiles are a different colour in front of that rock. Isn't that suspicious? Hey, listen – can you hear running water? It's coming from over there... A_nother pair of eyes, so to speak. Most of all, he just wanted the sense that he wasn't alone in here.

_But you are_, said the Kokiri boy. _You always have been._

The unearthly chanting and drumming continued, seeming to come from all directions at once. The noise seemed to make the space between boy and faerie grow.

"I don't have to be here," muttered Tatl very, very quietly.

Link opened his mouth to say something, held it there for a few seconds, then closed it again.

**-oOo-**

Hours passed. They wandered through the temple, room by room. It was damp and smelly and Tatl didn't like it one bit. But she kept her mouth shut. After the kid's outburst she hadn't uttered a word. See how _he_ liked being treated second class.

Now that she was just observing him, a thought occurred to her. There was something strange – well, stranger than normal – about the way the kid was acting inside here. Not just the way he'd dealt with those spiders, but the way he moved around the temple, searching for hidden passages or spare keys hidden in nooks and crannies.

At first, she put it down to some effect of the creepy drumming-chanting sounds that seemed to follow them wherever they went. (She didn't like it herself. It reminded her way too much of the mindless 'punishment!' rally that the scrubs had been crying in the palace. It gave her an unnerving sense of isolation.)

After a while, it occurred to her. _He's done this before._

The kid's mental map was as sharp as hers. All this time and he'd been able to navigate the temple without her help. His eyes moved to all the right places, glazing over the uncontrolled plant growth and honing in on the subtle architectural features that hinted at the temple's overall shape. He'd deduced that there was a second level of rooms almost as quickly as she had.

All this made her even more curious about the name he'd been muttering last night.

They'd been in that clearing in the woods, hoping to catch some sleep. As soon as the boy closed his eyes she had flown down to ground level, retrieving the stash of four-leaved clovers she'd spent the afternoon surreptitiously collecting. She'd learnt a little about them from the Great Faerie years back: how they grew in places with high magical potential (leading generations of nimwits to confuse correlation with causation), and how prolonged exposure could (very, very slightly) improve people's moods. She'd figured the kid might be a little more talkative if he wasn't so grumpy.

Anyway, as she'd starting threading the first one through his clothes – with the utmost silence, by the way; she could tell he wasn't entirely zonked out yet – she'd heard his voice, all of a sudden. One word, but in the silence of the woods she could make it out perfectly. She'd moved a little closer, in case he said anything else. The kid was such a mystery, and any information she could get, however slight, could be important. After a minute or so, he said that same word again. "Navi." But then the stupid monkey had shown up before she could get anything further.

Clearly it was a person's name, not an inanimate object. Nobody could be _that_ hung up over a favourite chew toy. It was foreign, but pleasant. Short and sweet, the sort of name a faerie would have. Definitely not a faerie, though, not if his behaviour towards her was any indication. His horse's name, perhaps? He _had_ seemed pretty upset when Skull Kid stole it. Or maybe a pet bird? Now that – _don't laugh out loud, don't laugh out loud_ – that would explain a lot. She smirked.

After a while spent musing about this, Tatl snapped back to her surroundings. They were backtracking through a particularly boring stretch of corridors. Murals on the walls, blah blah blah.

She noticed that the only light now was from the torches. The ambient glow from the ceiling recesses was gone. The sun had set.

**CYCLE 1: PARANOIA  
NIGHT of the SECOND DAY**

The sound of the drumming followed them everywhere. By itself it would have been bearable; invigorating even. But the chanting was what got to Link. Perhaps this was the monster's doing, a way of wearing down its prey before they got close by playing upon their loneliness.

They stepped into yet another room, and immediately Link noticed the wooden ramp in its centre, leading up to a second floor. _Aha._ He'd suspected as much; the ceiling in some rooms was a lot lower than others. He couldn't help but think that he'd have found the way up a lot quicker with Navi by his side. She'd always had a knack of finding the right path the first time.

The next thing he noticed was the Baba plant growing just a short distance away. It was impossible to mistake: the thick, muscular stem, the bulbous blue head with hard thorny leaves that clamped like jaws around any animal that foolishly got too close.

This Baba was blocking the path towards the ramp. Link looked around, found an alternate way around the room that involved several bridges crossing over swamp water, and started in that direction.

"Uh," said Tatl, "if you're heading upstairs, there's a quicker way."

"This way works too," said Link. He frowned, realising he hadn't heard her speak for a while now.

"But it's, like, five times the walking. Just cut down the plant and let's go."

"I'd rather not."

She must have seen it in his face. "You're not being holier-than-thou. You really don't want want to go near it. How come? What's so scary about Baba plants?"

_-red, thinking, no, he thrashed-_

"I don't like them," said Link. "That's all."

They reached the top of the ramp and Link found himself staring down a long dark tunnel. It had clearly fallen into disuse; layers upon layers of cobwebs lined it, so thick in some places that Link wasn't sure he could cut through it. Silk could be surprisingly tough.

He walked up to it, touched the web with the tip of his finger, and pulled it back. Sticky. Barrelling through it would only end badly.

He glanced around the room, noting the flaming torches mounted at even intervals along the walls. They didn't look detachable.

"Tatl," he said. "Can you fly through that and see if there's anything useful down there?"

"You want me to fly into a _web_?" Tatl laughed dismissively. "Wingshreds, you're madder than I thought."

Link smiled. "I had to ask."

He walked back down the ramp and took the shorter path to where the Baba was rooted.

"Oh, you're actually going to kill it?" Tatl said.

"Something like that."

As he approached it turned, its roots detecting the tremor in the ground from his footsteps. Its toothy thorns gnashed against each other, and it coiled back, ready to strike.

Link stepped towards the plant, keeping his weight on the balls of his feet where he could redistribute it quickly. The instant he came into the Baba plant's range it lunged, reaching full extension and pounding its 'jaws' shut in a quarter of a second. He hopped back, letting the plant miss by half a foot, and then swiped his sword down. But the plant had already sprung back to its original position.

"Hey, it's a smart one," said Tatl. "My bet's on the plant... that was a joke. Stop looking at me like that."

Link stepped in again, shield first. The Baba's head smashed into the metal shield, bounced off, and waved around, looking disoriented. Link took a lunging step and brought his sword down, cutting the plant off at the roots. The head continued to thrash around for a few seconds before growing still. Four hundred and sixteen.

Kneeling down, he used the edge of his sword to remove the Baba's head. He lifted the stem in his hand and tested it. It had already tightened in a kind of rigor mortis, more stick than stem now.

"Oh, I see what you did there," said Tatl.

"What do you mean?" said Link. He walked over to the nearest torch, held the end of the Baba-stick to the open flame, and waited for it to catch.

"You're going to use the torch to burn the webs down, aren't you?" (Link nodded.) "I thought so. Smart. Very boy scout."

"Very what?"

"When this is all over, you have to show me the rock you grew up under. It sounds really homely."

He returned to the web with the makeshift torch, and brought the flame close to the spider silk. As hoped, it caught fire immediately. The flames spread down the web-congested tunnel rapidly.

Link and Tatl moved back a safe distance, watching the interior of the tunnel light up like a barrel of fireworks.

After a pause, Tatl spoke up.

"Who's Navi?"

Link froze. Slowly, he turned to face Tatl. "What?"

She looked curious, not cruel. "Who's Navi?"

"Where did you hear that name?" He couldn't possibly have mentioned it. Not to _her_. The less the yellow faerie knew about his past, the less he needed to say to her. "Have you been spying on me?"

She ignored him. "It's obviously someone's name. A brother or sister, maybe. This Navi, he, she..."

"She," said Link. "And I don't have to tell you anything."

Tatl shrugged. "Okay. Suit yourself."

After another minute, it became clear that she had actually dropped the subject. Link hid his surprise.

Once the fire was out and smoke had mostly dissipated they started down the tunnel.

**-oOo-**

After some exploring they found what Link thought might be a garden. Of course, this was hard to tell, given that the entire temple was overrun with vegetation, but the trees inside here seemed carefully pruned. A neat hexagon of Deku flowers lined the grass, while shallow puddles of water – clear, unpolluted water – highlighted the lumps in the terrain. Gently burning torches at regular intervals along the wall gave the room a candlelit feel.

In the centre of the room, Goddesses know why, sat a brown wooden chest.

Tatl's eyes lit up the instant she spotted it. "Hey! A treasure chest! Let's see what's inside."

"How about that?" said Link, more to himself than Tatl. He knew that the ancient architects of Hyrule had often delighted in building massive rooms just to house strange artefacts and weapons, but he'd never expected that quirk to extend beyond the Hylian border.

He tried the chest. Locked, no surprise. He knelt down with his eye to the keyhole.

"Any experience picking locks?" said Tatl.

"A little," said Link. "Some are easier than others." Chests hidden this deeply in temples were usually single-pin, since their designers never expected thieves to make it this close.

"Cool. And this one?"

"Shouldn't be too bad. I'll need something small and sharp, though." He used to carry a sickle around for this purpose, back when he and Navi had cracked their way through every temple in Hyrule. "Look around. We passed an armoury a few rooms back; look for... I don't know, hunting knives. Spearheads, perhaps. Something thin."

"Would a needle do?" said Tatl.

He looked up. "You carry a needle around?"

She shrugged. "Call it a last resort against avian hostility."

Link nodded. "That should do."

"_Grikkit!_"

A bright red froglike creature, about Link's size, was standing in the entrance to the room, blocking off the only passage out. It croaked loudly, glaring at them.

"That's a Gekko," whispered Tatl. "And it's pretty angry."

"Why? Are we on its territory?"

"Why don't you ask it?"

Link held up his hands and addressed the Gekko loudly. "Excuse me. Are we..."

"They don't speak, stupid!" interrupted Tatl.

"But you said-"

"Look, it's weak. Think of it as a really big, self-important frog. Show it your sword and I bet it'll leave."

Link drew his sword and pointed it at the Gekko, which slowed down straight away. A few short waves of the sword and a few steps forward, and the amphibian turned and hopped back into the passageway, its croaks growing quieter and quieter.

"That'll learn it," said Tatl. She reached behind her back and pulled out a needle. Her strong yellow glow made it hard for Link to see where she had been keeping it, but he guessed it was the fold between her wings. "Here. The Needle of Destiny. Use it wisely, o brave warrior."

Link laughed and took the needle, inserting it carefully into the keyhole. "This needle," he said, as he tested the lock. "Are those stains on the end."

"Blood? Yeah." Tatl buzzed left and right around his hands, trying to get a better view. "Want to know what kind of blood?"

"No, I really don't."

"You sure?"

"_Grikkit!_"

They both turned, staring into the passageway.

"Not that frog thing again," said Tatl. "Clearly it's a slow learner."

Something large and aqua came hurtling out of the passageway, making a beeline for Link. He dived out of the way reflexively, landing in a roll, and turned to see what had just happened.

The Gekko was back, but it wasn't alone any more. It stood on top of a fiercely snapping tortoise, the same spike-shelled variety they'd passed in the woods the previous afternoon. The former seemed to be controlling the latter, waving it forward and leaning on it sideways to bring it around in a circle.

The tortoise retracted its arms and legs into its shell and began spinning around like a top. Though with the hard spikes on the edge of its shell, perhaps it was more like a gear or a circular saw. Sliding on its smooth belly, it built up speed quickly and started towards Link again.

"That is... really, really wrong," gaped Tatl.

"How can it move so fast?" said Link, hopping out of the way of the tortoise's charge. He slashed his sword at it as it passed, but it recoiled off the shell. It felt as hard as rock.

"No, I mean the two of them," said Tatl. "Snapper tortoises don't co-operate with each other, much less with anything outside their species. But the Gekko is just riding it."

"So it's some kind of symbiosis," shrugged Link. The pair of amphibians were slowing down, turning to face him again. "Any thoughts for dealing with them?"

"Besides running away?" said Tatl. She paused, frowning in concentration. Then, "No idea."

Link walked slowly sideways, keeping his eyes on the tortoise and Gekko as they drew near him. He planned to dodge in the opposite direction, hopefully buying himself a little more time.

Strangely, as the tortoise drew close it slowed down and veered off to the side. The Gekko croaked madly ("_Grikk, grikkit!_") and banged on the tortoise's shell for a few seconds. Eventually, it obeyed and charged Link again.

"What just happened?" Link sidestepped. The tortoise's rapid passage flapped at his tunic. He knew an enemy having second thoughts when he saw one. "Why didn't it want to charge me?"

"Beats me. Maybe it likes your hat?"

"It's a serious question," said Link through gritted teeth. There had to be some other factor he wasn't considering, something that the tortoise instinctively recognised as a threat.

The tortoise came barrelling by again. Link attempted a feint, but it anticipated his move and moved in the same direction. It hit Link's shield, sending him stumbling back a few steps. That wasn't good – the tortoise was learning fast, and Link still didn't have a way of dealing with it. The Gekko seemed to be in on it, too, waving left and right while shrieking its croaked syllables like a field marshal preparing an offensive.

"Deku flower!" said Tatl suddenly. "You're standing next to a Deku flower!"

Link looked down to his side and saw that she was right. But the flower was hardly an obstacle to the tortoise, he thought, it was low enough that the creature could simply spin over it. It certainly wouldn't affect its momentum. So why would the tortoise have an aversion to...

"Oh," he said, realising. "Oh!"

He fumbled for the mask on his belt and pressed it to his face just as the two amphibians began their next charge. He yelled as the mask's magic spilled into his body with excruciating force, the pain driving all else out of his mind at the exact moment of transformation. Then he was in the body of a Deku scrub, smaller and weaker.

The tortoise was closing on him, fifty feet away and moving an easy ten feet per second. It was spinning so fast its spikes were a blur. As Link scrambled towards the Deku flower, a distant part of his mind wondered whether it would be more or less damaging to be hit by it as a scrub instead of a human.

With three seconds to impact, he dived into the Deku flower so smoothly the instincts might have been his own. He focused on the sinewy tendrils inside, forcing them to squeeze him harder, tighter, and counted down: three, two...

"Now! Now!" shouted Navi. The faerie. Tatl.

_Now_, he thought, and the flower's roots and tendrils flung him upwards like a whip the exact moment his amphibious aggressors hurtled across its surface. Link felt himself collide with the tortoise's squishy soft underbelly – its one exposed surface, its only weak spot – and then the next few seconds were a concussed blur of gravity and utter disorientation.

He crashed onto the ground, bounced once, twice, then bumped up against a tree. He lay still for a few seconds, dizzy, then sprang to his feet, removing the mask.

Tatl was zipping up and down, mad with excitement. "That looked incredible! You should have seen yourself! All that momentum, all that squealing the three of you were doing! It was a beautiful ballet of... bombastic... ness!"

"Where are..." Link spotted the tortoise. It lay on its back, kicking its arms and legs furiously. The Gekko lay not far away, lying face first on the ground. One of its legs twitched, and Link let out a breath: it was only unconscious.

He was suddenly aware that his sword was still in his hand. It had been there when he'd put the mask on. It had remained there once the transformation was undone.

"Wow..." Tatl laughed giddily. "Okay, come on, kid, open that chest. You know you want to."

"All right," shrugged Link. He knelt down in front of the chest and waited for his heartbeat to return to its normal rhythm. After half a minute, he began working at the lock again.

Tatl hovered around the lock, watching Link's efforts with curiosity. "What do you think's inside? Gold? Forbidden knowledge?... Hey, hey, I bet it's a huge anticlimax. You probably just went through all that for somebody's spare clothes."

The lock clicked open. Link exhaled.

"Here's hoping," he said, opening the lid.

There was no overhead lighting, and so they couldn't immediately tell what was inside. Link moved his hand around the base of the chest and felt something cold and angular. He grasped it and held it up to the light.

It was a metallic weapon, cast in a flattened C-shape. Holding the ends in position was a taut wire, no thicker than a needle, so smooth that its edge glistened in the torchlight. An inscription ran across its length, unreadable in the dimness.

Link stared at it for a few long seconds, then smiled.

Tatl flew in for a closer look. "What is that, a bow?"

"Yes," said Link.

He turned it over, weighting it in his hands. The metal was surprisingly lightweight but unmistakably sturdy. It certainly wasn't made from any ore he was familiar with. He ran his fingers across the string, which was so perfectly smooth it might have been made by magic. Most surprisingly of all, it was about two feet in length: far too small for any human archer above the age of twelve. But it was a perfect fit for him.

He felt around the chest again, checking if anything else was hidden in there. He came across a few spare bowstrings, and moved them to a pocket of his tunic. It was always good to have spares on hand.

Feeling slightly troubled by the contents of the chest, he walked towards the nearest torch to get a better look at the inscription.

"Ooh, let me!" Tatl flew closer and read aloud: "'For heroes of any race and creed, for friends of the four who are ever here'."

"'The four'?" said Link. "Like what your brother said on the tower?"

"Nothing important, I'm sure." Tatl waved the question away. "But yeah... a heroes' bow, huh? This is going to make things a cinch. You'll be this unstoppable death machine now." She was flying around erratically, visibly excited by the prospect.

"The problem is," said Link, "we don't have any arrows."

Tatl paused in the middle of a loop-the-loop. "What?" she said, hovering upside down. "No arrows? It didn't come with any?"

"No," said Link. "I guess whoever put this here assumed that whoever found the bow would already have their own supply."

The faerie frowned. "You can't, like, use twigs or something instead?"

Link smiled and shook his head. "It doesn't really work like that."

"Huh. Why am I not surprised that you know how it works?" She shrugged. "Ah, well. Ditch it. We can come back for it when we've dealt with the monster."

Link frowned. "I have the feeling we'll need the bow."

"A feeling?"

Sometimes an honest explanation was unbelievable to begin with. "Just trust me on that. Do you know anywhere we could get arrows?"

"Nowhere in the swamp."

"What about Clock Town?"

Tatl rolled her eyes. "Yes, they sell everything there, but seriously... There is no way we're going all the way back to Clock Town just for... Hey! Where do you think you're going?"

Link shifted the bow into one hand and headed for the passageway. Begrudgingly, Tatl followed him out.

* * *

**A/N:** I certainly had fun writing this one. Last bit (the bow pickup) was a little rushed because I decided I should stick to my unofficial 'deadline', so do point out any spelling or grammatical mistakes there.

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions about how the dungeons should be handled. In the end I stuck reasonably close to my original intention, but I think you can see where one or two of your ideas bled in. (In particular, Link having 'panic attacks' is something that I see as perfectly in character... in the right context. First temple in the game is not the place for a seasoned dungeon crawler to lose his head.) As usual, please review to let me know what you think. Review-alert adrenaline buzz, I really appreciate all your feedback, particularly the detailed kind.

As you can see, the plot diverts a little at this point. Expect to see certain side storylines referred to in the coming chapters. And... well... okay, maybe I shouldn't make too many promises when I haven't decided _exactly_ how things will go. I think you'll like it.

Also: "_Any objections, Lady?_" When a game series not exactly known for grand, sweeping storytelling suddenly gets a new entry that seems set to fill in some of the most interesting holes in its canon, should we as fanfic readers/writers be delighted or horrified?


	23. Unfamiliar Faces

**INSOMNIA**  
**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

Clock Town hadn't changed much since they'd left it. It loomed before them now, its rooftops and clock tower casting sharp silhouettes in the half-light of predawn. Unlike the scrubs' palace, the town's surrounding stone walls gave it an air of solidarity, not solitude.

Above, the moon continued its slow, inexorable descent. The sight of the monolithic rock was still as chilling as it had been when Link first laid eyes on it. If he ever forgot the urgency of this ill-defined mission, or how little time there was to waste, a single look to the heavens would fix that easily enough.

"Good to be back, isn't it?" said Tatl.

"I guess so," said Link. Those three days trapped within the town walls had left him with a fondness for the place, crowds and all.

The southern gate was easily visible, flanked by torches. They stepped through the narrow passageway and past the defensive portcullis, where the guard on duty nodded his head to them before resuming his ramrod-still vigil.

The sun wasn't out yet, and so the town square was mostly empty. In a distant corner a trio of dancers went slowly through an acrobatic routine. The town postman jogged around the edge of the square, stopping only to slip an envelope through a door slot. The carpenters continued to toil away at the festival tower, which they would never complete.

An interesting thought occurred to Link. He waited until the guard was out of earshot before voicing it:

"I wonder we are right now."

"Uh, Clock Town. We're surrounded by signs. It's-" Tatl caught herself mid-sentence. "Oh, you mean..."

Link nodded. "What were we doing last time around?"

"On your second night here?" Tatl smiled wistfully. "The Bombers. We were running around playing Jim's stupid games. Hey, do you think we might be able to find our past selves? Tell them - us - not to bother with all the running around, and just to go straight to the clock tower?"

Link laughed and shook his head. "I wish. But we've seen it doesn't work like that. You can't change history. Everything that we remember happening last time around is fixed."

"But it hasn't happened yet," said Tatl. She waved her hand around at the people in the square. "_They_ don't remember anything happening."

"Doesn't make a difference," said Link. "Remember how the man in the windmill..."

"What windmill?"

"The one in..." He caught himself in time. "Never mind. I got confused with something else."

Tatl didn't say anything, but fixed him with a quizzical look.

Link avoided her gaze. "Where can we get arrows?"

"The western quarter is our best shot. You can find anything in those alleyways...

Link nodded and started in that direction.

After a few seconds of contemplative thought, Tatl turned around to fly backwards, fixing him with a devilish smile. "Hey, wait, if I understand this correctly... you know how we saw our future selves and all? Is _that _all fixed and can't-changeable?"

"I guess so..."

"But then what happens if we're killed by a giant condor before we ever get to be on the other end of the conversation? Wouldn't that stop it from ever happening? Or isn't that possible?"

Link paused. The Seven Years War had taught him that time was a single immutable thing, but during that time he'd never encountered himself as he had here in Termina, never known anything for certain about his own future. How _would _that work? Were they invulnerable from serious harm? What would happen if he killed himself? The thought was dizzying, not to mention nauseating. It had to be impossible to change the course of things, yet at the same time it couldn't be possible to confer invincibility on himself by some loophole...

It was another minute until he spoke. "If you want to throw yourself in front of a flock of birds, I won't stop you."

Tatl laughed and looked away. "I'll pass."

The alleyways were fairly quiet at this time of morning. A few early risers leaned over their stalls, rearranging lines of handmade trinkets or fresh produce. A tiny boy, his face blackened with soot, dashed across the street carrying a small crate. A pair of young adults sat on a public bench with their arms entwined, exchanging amorous nonsense. It was through these cobblestone streets, still slippery from rain the previous afternoon, that Link and Tatl trawled, searching the closed shopfronts for somewhere that advertised arrows.

It was only as he started estimating prices that the obvious problem finally occurred to Link.

"We don't have any money," he said, coming to a halt.

"What?" said Tatl. "But when we and Skull Kid robbed you your wallet was stuffed full of... oh. Robbed." She winced. "That kind of sucks."

Link nodded. "Any ideas?" Seeing the look on the faerie's face, he added, "...that don't involve breaking the law."

"Well, what do you want me to say? If you want to be all boring and law-abiding, you're going to need money. And no way in hell am I waiting around while you crawl under carts looking for people's lost change."

"I was thinking more along the lines of earning..."

"Oh, no you don't," scoffed Tatl. "Earning money? You want to run errands? Carting people's trash around town for pocket money? Forget the fact that we don't have that kind of time... What do you take me for? What do you take _yourself _for?"

"Hey there, little guys!"

Link and Tatl turned. The voice belonged to a lanky man sitting in a stall on the opposite side of the road, wearing a black woolen cap that went down to his eyes. As they looked, he hopped over the bench and strolled towards them.

"Couldn't help but overhear you two talking about money troubles," he said. He proffered a hand and Link shook it by reflex. "Do you need a loan?"

"A loan?" said Link.

"I lend you the money you need right now, you pay it back later with..."

"We know what a loan is," interrupted Tatl.

"I don't," said Link.

"I wasn't talking to you." She waved him aside, focusing on the man. "This sounds like a scam. How do we know we can trust you?"

"Little miss, _I'd _be lending _you_ money. You don't need to trust me."

"Pssh. Who are you, anyway?"

"Why, I'm the owner of Termina's very first bank," he said. He gestured grandly at his wooden stall, which swayed in the morning breeze. "I got the idea from some friends who went overseas. In theory you could earn yourself a living just on the basis of loans, so long as you made sure your customers money."

"Where do you get the money in the first place?"

"Well, I also offer a service where I hold on to people's money for safekeeping and give it back with interest. So I use the money I have in keeping to finance the loans, and I... Well, the system sustains itself, you know what I mean?"

"You make money by giving people money, and you lose money by taking people's money?" Tatl raised her eyebrows and turned to Link. "I take that back, kid: he's not a scam artist, he's just insane."

The man raised his hands in mock surrender. "Well, if you change your mind, little guy, you know where to find me." With a pleasant chortle, he turned and walked back to his stall.

Link and Tatl continued to walk down the alley, perusing the signs outside shops. There were fruit and vegetables and carpets and shoes and a plethora of other things on offers, but nowhere seemed to sell weaponry. They passed quite a few apartment buildings as well, from which bleary-eyed people emerged to begin their morning errands.

"I don't understand why you turned him down," said Link once they were out of sight of the 'bank' man.

"He was offering something for nothing," said Tatl. "I don't like that. If some random person in the street handed you an apple would you eat it? It's one thing when you're stealing the money for yourself, but here I can't see what the catch is."

"You talk about stealing pretty casually..." said Link.

Tatl rolled her eyes. "Laws are written by the big, clumsy oafs of the world, so they should only apply to them. You're not allowed to judge me until they start building doors for faeries."

"But surely the people who write the rules..."

"We're getting sidetracked. Turn right into that lane there. I think I remember seeing arrows somewhere around here once."

This lane was a little busier. The sky was brightening, and already people were marching off to their places of work. They walked down, peering through windows one by one. The clock tower bells began ringing, heralding the onset of morning.

**CYCLE 1: PARANOIA****  
****DAWN of the THIRD DAY**

All of a sudden, a small old lady emerged from one of the shops, looking very flustered. She immediately began calling out - not quite shouting, she didn't look like she had the strength for that - trying to get the attention of anyone who would listen.

"Guards! Guards!" she cried. "Someone help! My shop has been robbed!"

Link squinted for a second. The old lady looked familiar. Then he remembered - she was the one he had seen being mugged in the Clock Town park. When had that been? His first night as a scrub... which would make it the night before now.

"Hey, remember her?" said Tatl. "You do? Yeah... rotten luck for her, by the sounds of it."

Some deep-seated sense of injustice twinged. Link walked towards her, wondering if there was anything he could do to help. As he drew near, his eyes snagged for a split second on the inscription of the door the woman had appeared from: 'Bomb Shop, 9 to 5'. Not arrows, but certainly something keeping in mind.

A small crowd was already forming around the old lady. Link couldn't see anything without pushing past people, but he could hear her as clear as day. "It's terrible," she was saying, her voice cracking. "You think it'll never happen to you. Three robberies in as many days..."

"Please, miss." A young man in dirty clothes spoke. "What happened? Did you see who did it?"

The old lady shook her head slowly. "No, no... I only arrived a few minutes ago. My entire supply of fireworks is gone, and the last jars of demolition powder, too..."

Someone else in the crowd spoke, nasally and self-important. "Where the hell were the guards?"

Another voice, matronly and sleep deprived. "They were running around town all night raising a ruckus. Had a few too many, if you ask me."

Another voice. "Maybe the looting has already started. That moon sure is getting close."

The speculation continued and the thin crowd thinned even further. Some people lost interest and wandered off, while quite a few kept talking to the old lady, discussing amongst themselves whether it would be of any use to get the guards involved at this point.

"I'll bet you it was the Bombers," muttered someone next to Link.

Tatl laughed, and Link realised she wasn't the one who had spoken. He turned and looked.

Standing next to him was a boy about his own age. He wasn't armed and didn't look particularly strong, and was quickly dismissed as a threat by the part of Link's mind that assessed the unfamiliar. The boy was wearing a snug-looking purple vest over simple white and black clothes. He stood with his hands dangling limply by his side. His hair might have been blue or purple: the early morning light reflected strangely off it, making it difficult to tell. His eyes, dark red and harried, followed the old lady hobbling away in search of the town guard. He blinked slowly, then turned to meet Link's gaze.

"You know the Bombers?" said Link. He was curious: he had thought of Jim's secret society as being... secret.

"Do I?" The boy laughed without a trace of mirth. "I used to be one, back when I was young. I know all the tricks."

"When you were _young_?" said Tatl. She stared at the boy as if expecting to see a cleverly concealed beard.

The boy's face shifted strangely for a second, as if he was trying to smile but had forgotten which muscles to tighten. "Yes. Well."

Something about the blue-haired boy's manner put Link at unease. Perhaps it was the neat clothing, perhaps it was the brooding air emanating from him. Whatever it was, it was sending warning bells ringing in the back of Link's mind. There was something wrong about the other boy.

He opened his mouth to ask, _Who are you?_.

The boy spoke first. "I've been thinking about what you had to say yesterday."

The words took a moment to register, and then the implications were running through Link's mind. The other boy knew him somehow; he thought he had talked to them yesterday. It had to have something to do with the Song of Time - their future selves had to be involved in this somehow. And in turn, that meant the blue-haired boy expected them to know what was talking about, even though...

"So what _are _your thoughts?" said Tatl to the boy. Her guarded tone was enough for Link to know she was thinking along the same lines.

Link sighed inwardly. Time travel was never this confusing in Hyrule. Not that location had anything to do with it. Perhaps the Goddesses had conspired to make his life more and more convoluted as time went on. Or didn't, rather.

"You were right," the other boy said. He stared at the ground. "I was up all night, thinking... I can't keep hiding like this forever. I have to face things. Face her."

"Yeah," said Tatl. She nodded wisely. "Yeah, you have to."

Link shot her a '_what are you doing?_' look. She ignored him.

"But I can't face her," continued the boy. "Not yet. Not without..." His voice lowered. "Not without my sun," he mumbled.

"Sun?" said Link, immediately berating himself for it. What if the boy became suspicious? (_Suspicious of what?_, said a voice in his head. _You're not pretending to be someone else._)

"Sun mask. Don't you...? Oh. Sorry, I forgot you're not from these parts... I have a lead though. I'm going to go follow it up. I might be able to find it before... before..." The boy looked up to the sky. For a moment the moon's red eyes were reflected in his.

Tatl took the opportunity to flying in close to Link's ear and whisper, "Do you have any idea what's going on here?"

Link responded with the tiniest shake of his head.

The blue-haired boy brought his eyes back down to the realm of the living. "Listen. Rumour has it that my... that Mayor Dotour is going to go ahead with the evacuation any minute. If people start leaving town... If she... You have to convice her to stay." He looked between boy and faerie earnestly. "You have to. I'm going the canyon to find the bastard's hideout."

"The canyon?" said Tatl, looking shocked. "No man's land? The place with all the undead creepy-crawlies? All by yourself?"

"The place with all the what?" said Link, turning to her.

"I have to," the boy said. "I can't show up at the Stockpot Inn without the mask... After everything I must have put her through I owe her at least that... Tell her to wait, will you? In fact..." He began fumbling with something around his neck. "These damn fingers..."

Tatl flew up to the boy, waving her fist a hair's-width away from his nose. "The _canyon_? Today of all days? You must have a death wish!"

"Maybe I do," said the boy, sounding entirely serious.

"Well... okay. Ignore little Tatl. Your funeral." She threw her hands up in the air and flew back to Link.

"What's so bad about the canyon?" Link whispered to her. "Didn't your brother say we had to go there?"

Tatl shrugged. "We still have no idea what Tael was on about. And the canyon, well, it's infested with monsters, that's all. It's dangerous to go alone..."

After some effort the blue-haired boy managed to remove a pendant from his neck. "Take this," he said, holding it out.

Link took it. It was small and light in his hand, with an inch-wide amber heart stone. Its silver chain slid like sand between his fingers.

"What is it?" he said.

"Just give it to her. She'll understand," said the boy solemnly. There was a determined resignation in his eyes.

Without waiting he turned and dashed away. He was fast on his feet, and slipped with ease into the growing morning crowd, where he was lost amongst the legs of adults. Link stared after him, feeling slightly dazed.

"Do you know who that was?" he asked Tatl.

"Not a clue. Former Bomber, huh? I didn't recognise him."

Link looked at the pendant in his hand. "Do you have any idea who he wanted us to give this to?"

"Shouldn't we know eventually?" said Tatl. "I mean, if this is more of your annoying time travel business..."

"It's not _my_ time travel..."

"Well, whatever. The point is, blah, blah, you can't change history, blah, so we're going to eventually have that conversation where we know what the hell the kid is raving on about. And hey, if you wanted to know more, you could have just asked..."

"Asked?" said Link indignantly. As if he hadn't spent the entire time wondering how to do that. "And what exactly should I have said?"

"Couldn't you have slipped in a, I don't know, 'Oops, I forgot your name'?"

"But we don't know anything about how well he knows us. Maybe he remembers us calling him by name all the time."

Tatl waved it aside. "Then don't! Just act like a complete birdbrain around him, and he wouldn't think twice of it! You know, for a so-called time travel expert, your imagination sucks."

Link got the gist of what she was saying, and was irked to find that he didn't disagree. The faerie was starting to get her head around the contortions of past and future just as well as him, and he wasn't sure if he liked that.

**-oOo-**

**The Eastern Thoroughfare****  
****Clock Town**

They ended up on the opposite side of town, where the buildings were larger and more grandiose. Outside the Mayor's office huddled a group of guards, all pointing at different spots on a map of town and trading suggestions with each other. They passed more than a few people quietly talking about the moon and the rumoured evacuation orders. Business, however, was as usual for the time being, and Link caught sight of plenty people wandering in and out of shops. The smell of cooking bacon carried all the way down the street.

Though they still had no money, Link had spotted a few places offering arrows. He was perplexed to find that everything seemed to be twice as expensive on this half of town.

"It's all part of the atmosphere," explained Tatl when he asked her. "People have this funny idea that finding something in an expensive store makes it better."

"That doesn't make any sense," said Link.

"You humans never do," said Tatl. To illustrate her point she waved her hand in the direction of a woman ushering six children around, as they tugged at stranger's skirts and threw pebbles at stray dogs. "Neither do the Zoras. They're just as mad as you." She waved her hand at a poster advertising a festival act, which depicted five of the fishfolk posing atop a giant whale. "I don't think I need to tell you about the Deku scrubs."

"And I suppose faeries are the sensible ones?" said Link with sceptical good humour.

"Of course." She grinned.

"You're stereotyping."

"Sure," said Tatl, "but bird's meat if it's not true most of the time. To be fair, the Gorons are a pretty down-to-earth lot."

They kept walking. At this point Link wasn't even sure what he was looking for. Maybe they should have been returning to the temple. Maybe the bow wasn't as necessary as old dungeon-crawling habits had led him to believe.

"Hey, here's a thought," said Tatl, spinning around to face him. "Can't you use some kind of crazy time trick to get arrows?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I don't know, summon our future selves to make arrows appear in front of us?"

Link smiled sceptically. "Well, if you see any arrows magically appearing, let me know."

Tatl frowned in thought. She was still flying backwards, slipping between the heads in the crowd with impossible grace. Link winced at every near miss. It wasn't the first time he had seen her do it, but it was the first time it had made him wonder if the faerie had eyes in the back of her head.

She spoke again. "Can't you make your own arrows somehow? Don't... hey, don't you need feathers or something to make them?" Her face lit up like fireworks. "That's awesome! It'd be a win-win! You'd have your arrows, and you'd finally use your sword on a deserving creature..."

"It has nothing to do with deserving," said Link, sounding more irritated than he felt. He was more surprised that Tatl hadn't said anything inside the temple.

"Oh, really? Because nothing deserves to die?" Tatl rolled her eyes.

Link had been about to say exactly that, but hearing it from her mouth made him pause.

"That's what I was brought up believing," he said, fully aware how that sounded.

"And do you believe it now?" said Tatl.

_Lightning on ashen sky, the blood of thousands still soaking into the earth. __The last staccato organ note fading to silence, thick fingers still perched on the keys, relaxed. "These toys are too much for you."_

Link didn't have an answer. "Those birds in the swamp were smaller than me, easily discouraged. If I can change their minds, why do anything else?"

"I think you've said that before," said Tatl after a moment's pause.

"I think you've asked all this before," said Link.

He smiled as if to say 'no offense intended_'_. Tatl smiled pleasantly in return, and turned around to face the way they were going again.

_Wait, what?_, thought Link. He blinked and looked away quickly. She wasn't supposed to smile back. What if she misinterpreted that one little exchange of facial expressions, and decided that they were friends? Such an irrational leap didn't seem beyond her. And it was definitely irrational. Friendliness and friendship were two completely different things.

To avoid this disturbing train of thought, he started looking around. The street was becoming busier. A pair of Gorons hurried past, brushing against a fruit stall. Rows of neatly lined lemons toppled to the ground and passers by laughed and stepped around as the stall's owner scrambled around, trying to retrieve his ware. Nearer by, a man and a Deku scrub in business attire were haggling over a bunch of flowers. In the corner of Link's eye he thought he spotted one of the Bomber children washing soot off his face in a public fountain.

After he had returned from the Seven Years War, Link had never quite been able to look his fellow Hylians in the eye without wondering, _Which of you would have died? Which of you would have betrayed your friends? _Here, far from home, such questions were irrelevant. It occurred to Link that he really liked Clock Town, madness and all. It was nice to be surrounded by strangers, people with joys and worries of their own. It was nice to feel like he wasn't alone in this world.

From somewhere in the crowd, someone called out: "Link!"

Link stopped and turned, looking for the source of the voice. Behind him, some several dozen people away, a young woman was looking at him and waving. As soon as he spotted her she began pushing through the crowd in his direction.

Tatl squinted. "Do you know her?" she asked Link.

"No," said Link.

"Great," said Tatl. "Neither do I. This makes twice in one hour, you know." She looked at him curiously. "Wait a sec, what did she just call you?"

"Link!" said the woman again. She elbowed past one last morning shopper and came to a breathless halt.

"Hi," said Link. He looked her up and down: fiery orange hair, blue eyes, tall and slim. She wore a lavender skirt that went up to Link's eye level, not improving the awkwardness of the situation at the least. Her clothes were smudged with dirt, like a farmer or a gravedigger. In one hand she was carrying an empty wooden crate that was far too unwieldy to use as a weapon.

The woman smiled weakly. "You two left before I had a chance to properly thank you and... Tatl, wasn't it?"

"Uh, yeah," said Tatl, looking surprised at being directly addressed. Her face brightened immediately. "Yeah, I guess we did."

"I was running around trying to find you," she said. "You won't believe it, but there was this scrub who looked... anyway, where were you? What were you up to?"

"Not much," said Tatl, before Link could make up an answer. She sounded like she was in an unusually good mood. "Just window shopping. It wasn't _that _long, was it?"

"Maybe a few hours? I dropped everything off at Latte and popped in to have a chat with Anju - apparently you've met? She's still pretty upset."

"Yeah, she must be," said Tatl. "Where did you see her, the park?"

"No, Stockpot Inn like always."

"Uh-huh. Of course." Tatl's voice had taken on an uncannily relaxed tone, like they were all old friends. Link had to admit that the faerie was doing a masterful job at playing along.

The young woman turned to Link. "Anyway, I wanted to say thanks for your help on the way over, Link. You were really brave back there. It's good deeds like that that separate the boys from the men. So to speak." She laughed and adjusted her yellow scarf with her free hand.

"Thank you," said Link.

"No, thank _you_. Drop by whenever you want. You're always welcome at Romani Ranch. And I... wait a minute, are you out of arrows again? Was _that _what you were doing wandering around?"

Link jumped. Tatl snickered at him.

"P-pardon?" Link stammered.

"Aww," the woman said, patting him on the head. The gesture didn't seem condescending. "Can't say I'm surprised after all that. But everything in this town is overpriced."

"Oh, we know," said Tatl.

"And why didn't you just ask me for some more? I've told you before, I'm never going to use any of mine. Don't feel guilty about taking the lot if you have to."

Link finally managed to regain his composure. "You have arrows?" he asked.

The woman laughed out loud. "Very cute," she said with a roll of the eyes. "Look, I'm heading back to the ranch now. If you want, follow me and I'll fix you up with some more arrows, okay?"

She smiled and turned to leave.

"Uh, wait!" said Tatl, zooming over to tap her on the shoulder.

"Mm?"

"I've totally forgotten your name," said Tatl. She gave a sheepish grin that, to Link, looked completely out of place on her normally sarcastic face. "Sorry."

The woman laughed and grinned, revealing two rows of milk white teeth. "Don't worry, you're not the first. It's Cremia, like the vintage."

"Oh, of course!" exclaimed Tatl. "Silly me." She swooped over to Link's ear and whispered: "See? It's not that hard."

"Tatl and Link, right?" said Cremia.

Link nodded, shooing Tatl away with one hand.

"All right. Anyway, I need to get back. I'll see you at the ranch, okay?"

Without waiting for an answer she turned and shoved her way back into the crowd, leaving a slightly perplexed boy and faerie behind her.

"Tatl and what?" said Tatl.

Link shrugged and began walking through the crowd in the direction the woman had gone. "I don't know about you, but this is confusing," he said. "I hope we don't run into anybody else and all that way." Time travel was already enough of a mind game without people knowing him before he'd met them. Doubly so when he wasn't used to people talking to him as if he were a close friend. "At least we've definitely settled the question of future affecting past..."

"Tatl and _what_?" said Tatl.

* * *

**A/N:** Hopefully all that wasn't too confusing. x_x Such are the woes of time travel in fiction.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed last chapter! I was thrilled to get so much positive feedback: like many of you said, dungeons are difficult to translate to prose, and I'm glad that it was to your satisfaction.

As those who've played the game have probably guessed, the two 'big' sidequests from MM will be featured in Insomnia. A lot of the story's time travel madness comes into play here. I decided early on that this was the best way to work them into the story, especially given the way in which Link's personal development unfolds. Hopefully you'll find that their emotional impact, though altered, is none the worse for it. (One potentially annoying side effect is that sidequest events will be spread out, but that was always going to happen with only four cycles.) Comments appreciated as usual. Yes, I live for the reviews. :P

(Next chapter: tiki finally gets lazy and delivers less than three thousand words? We'll have to see.)


	24. Pastorale

**INSOMNIA**_**  
**_**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

**Termina Field**

The guard at the eastern gate waved them through, and they stepped past the town walls into the countryside. The sun glared at them from directly ahead. The morning air was crisp and smelt faintly of flowers.

Link was immediately struck by how empty it was out here. Granted, there were a few dozen people standing around, untying horses or trudging towards the town gates. But none of these people so much as looked at each other, and compared to the noises and chatter of Clock Town the quietness made him uneasy for a moment.

Thankfully, Tatl was there to dispel any sense of loneliness.

"_Link_?" she said for the fourth or fifth time.

Link kept his mouth shut.

Tatl looked him up and down incredulously, like a cheated shopper trying to reconcile the label with the goods. "What kind of name is that?"

"Does it matter?" said Link. He looked around, trying to find the ranch woman Cremia. She hadn't been more than a hundred feet ahead of them.

"Of course it does. How is anyone supposed to take you seriously with a name like that?"

Link gave her an irritated look. "Just because it's an uncommon name..."

"No, no, no. 'Link' isn't a name, it's a verb." She blinked and stared blankly into the distance. "Blast, what kind of parents..."

"_Excuse _me?"

With one hand shielding his eyes, Link squinted out into the east. The grass thinned out as it approached the horizon, until the ground was little more than dirt. It occurred to him that for all his running around he had still seen very little of Termina, just Clock Town and a few hundred acres of swampland.

He looked back towards town, and spotted Cremia standing next to a covered wagon just a little further down the wall. Impossible to mistake by her fiery hair, she had her back turned to them, adjusting the bridles of a cart horse.

"There she is," Link said, pointing. "Cremia. She said to follow us, right? Should we ask her where to?"

"I think she said Romani Ranch."

"You know the way?" said Link.

Tatl nodded. "It's the only biggish ranch around. Me and Tael used to go there all the time. Throw nails at the chickens, that sort of thing."

Link blinked. "I thought you were scared of birds."

"Well, they're chickens, aren't they?" The faerie rolled her eyes. "And I'm not _scared _of birds, I'm rationally anxious around them."

"Right," said Link. "Is this ranch far?"

"It's walkable. Closer than the swamp." Tatl glanced at him. "Though if you're feeling tired, we could try hitching a ride from this Cremia figure."

All this time they had been walking towards the cart, where the ranch woman still had her back turned to them. As they drew closer Link noticed that the cloth tarp stretching across the cart's side was discoloured in places. Some of them had holes in the middle. Burn marks.

His danger instincts unsettled, Link slowed down. Normal wear and tear was one thing, but these burn marks weren't the even grey waves of a barn fire: they looked more as if they had been inflicted with flaming arrows.

"Something wrong?" said Tatl.

"Why would a barn cart..."

A loud whinny from behind them caught Link's attention. He turned, squinted into the sun, and his jaw dropped a little.

"Epona?" he said.

"Who's Epona," said Tatl, "your horse?"

Trotting towards them was a chestnut filly with a flour white mane and tail. Her reins were loose and dragged along the ground as she went. She passed in front of the morning sun and its light refracted on her fur, forming a golden outline around her.

Link stood there, too surprised to consider moving. "Epona..."

"Oh," said Tatl. "I was actually being sarcastic. Wasn't your horse called Navi?"

_It's not her_, went the Kokiri boy's sullen voice, even as Link registered the horse's height and her breed and her gait and her familiar neighing and the uniquely Hylian markings on the saddle and... Something inside of him clenched and he broke into a smile. He hadn't seen a familiar face for days.

"No, Navi was... someone else. This is Epona."

"Epona, huh?" said Tatl, rolling the name over in her mouth like fine wine. "Cute. Sounds like 'pony'. It's actually an appropriate name..."

The horse slowed down, coming to a gentle halt a few feet in front of them. Link reached out slowly, not wanting to startle her. The poor thing must have been lost in this unfamiliar land for days.

"Where have you been?" he said softly. "What did Skull Kid do with you?"

"He didn't do anything," said Tatl. "Your horse bolted the moment it got the chance. He, she..." - she circled over and under Epona - "she's a tough little critter."

Link's brushed Epona's fur with one wide palm. She inclined her head slightly, fixing him with a placid stare that seemed to ask, _Is something wrong?_.

"You're all right," he said, somewhere halfway between statement and question.

"Well, that goes with 'tough little critter', doesn't it?" said Tatl.

Epona whinnied and jerked her head expectantly. Link remembered her gestures well enough to know she was expecting him to climb on.

"Well?" said Tatl, who seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "You found your horse. She's offering you a ride. And our red-haired stranger has taken off."

Link turned and saw that Cremia's cart was indeed moving away, trundling slowly around the town walls and out of sight. He turned back to look at Epona and sighed, feeling a little strange. "Where have you been?" he asked again.

"She's not answering," said Tatl. "It's almost as if..." She gasped and mockingly clapped her hands to her face. "Oh no, your horse can't speak! What horrible curse did Skull Kid place on her?"

"Very funny."

"I know."

He slung his legs over Epona's saddle – the same one he had affixed to her back in Hyrule, that hadn't been moved since – and reached down, disentangling the reins. It was a familiar set of motions, and it was for precisely that reason it felt so out of place. After so many days in foreign lands and foreign bodies, this felt impossible.

"It's just... this is so sudden," he said aloud. "Termina is big. The chances Epona of just stumbling upon us like this are..."

"Well, you know what they say. Don't look a gift... I mean, don't argue with a good thing."

"I suppose," said Link.

One nudge with the heel of his boots and Epona took off like a coiled spring, dashing softly across the dewy morning grass. The blast of wind seemed to invigorate Link and he spurred the horse on, directing her towards Cremia's cart.

Tatl raced alongside them, keeping pace without so much as breaking a sweat. Once she was sure Link was watching, she began to show off, flying backwards and upside down and zipping tight circles around rider and horse with boastful casualness.

After another minute she dropped onto the horse's neck, laughing giddily. She glanced up at Link and gave him a sheepish grin.

"I think I like your horse," she said. "She's faster than you. Way more fun."

As they came up alongside Cremia, Link tugged gently at Epona's reins. As if reading his mind, the horse eased into a trot, matching her speed with the cart exactly.

The ranch woman spotted them and gave a friendly wave. Link waved back, then exchanged a look with Tatl.

"Don't you think it's strange she didn't notice we didn't recognise her?" he said. They were well out of earshot.

"Nah," said Tatl. "No one goes quizzing each other in normal conversation, do they? Besides, you're a bit weird. She probably couldn't tell the difference."

Link let it drop. He motioned at Cremia again. "So do you think she works at this ranch?"

Tatl shrugged. "No idea. It's been, like, decades since I last went there. Her clothes looked dirty enough, though."

They had circled around the town walls to the southern part of Termina Field, where the swamp was visible on the horizon. Link now recognised the dark purple clouds circling the volcano peak as part of the pollution that withered at the area.

Link couldn't help but glance down at Epona a few times, but there was not a scar or bruise to be found. He felt relieved, but not as much as he expected.

"Is something wrong with her?" said Tatl, after the forth or fifth time.

"No," said Link. "I'm just wondering what happened to her since we were separated."

It was almost the truth. Actually, he was wondering why he hadn't thought about that earlier. In all these last few days in Clock Town and then the swamp, he didn't ever remember stopping to wonder for Epona's safety.

"I've seen Tael with that look before," said Tatl. "That's not a worried look, that's guilt."

"It's not guilt," said Link. "It's... well, it's been days since I last saw her. Nearly a week. And all this time I barely spared Epona a thought."

Tatl stared at him for several seconds, as if trying to detect a hidden joke.

"The world is going to end tonight," she said wearily, "and you found that more worrying than your missing horse. Whoop dee doo."

"But..."

"Come on, kid. You're alive, your horse is alive, end of story."

Tatl was wrong: it wasn't that simple. Link had a lot of memories with the horse. No, more than that. Epona was one of the few living souls who hadn't deceived or betrayed him one way or another under Ganon's reign. He owed it to her to keep her safe.

"She was all out there by herself..." he began.

The faerie zipped in front of his face and shot him a glare that nearly knocked him out of his saddle. "What, you think you're the only one in the world with people to look after? You think you're so important? While you're sobbing about your horse being left outside, my little brother is stuck with that psychopath Skull Kid and his mask. Do you think I'm happy about that? Do you think I don't _care_?"

Link gaped. "I-"

Tatl cut him off. "Hey, I'm more than willing to put up with you, kid. Your daydreaming, your acute ornithophilia, the way you treat me like I'm some kind of second class citizen – hell, you seem to care more about your horse's feelings than mine. I don't have a problem with that. See? Don't care! What I _do _care about is you acting like you're the only one in the world with problems. Because you're not. _Everyone's _got a tear in their wings somewhere, and you're not doing anyone any favours by whining about how your horse was all _alone _in the _big, scary world_, okay? So get off your high horse and start worrying about what's right here, right now."

She continued glaring at him for a few more seconds, then dropped back to her perch on Epona's neck and stared out into the distance.

Too shocked to respond, Link fixed his eyes straight ahead and tried to compose himself. Despite the cool morning air he was sweating. For some reason his heart was beating as fast as if he were in the heat of battle.

Eventually it all sank in. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. After a few tries, he managed a single word:

"Sorry."

For a moment he thought Tatl hadn't heard. Then she turned to look at him. There was an unreadable expression on her face.

"You are, aren't you?" she said softly. "Wingshreds, no wonder you don't have any friends... You can't imagine hurt without evil."

She looked away without elaboration, and Link was left pondering what she had meant.

**-oOo-**

They travelled southwest, passing through a cliff-walled area called Milk Road. ("You'll never guess what they sell around here," said Tatl.) There were paths branching out in all directions, leading to various farms and what not. Cremia ignored all these turn-offs, following the road straight down to the property at its conclusion.

'Romani Ranch', read a large wooden sign above the entrance. A locked iron gate stood in the middle of a thick wooden fence – hardly a deterrent to thieves or intruders, but certainly enough to prevent animals from wandering in or out.

Cremia unlocked the gate and headed inside with her cart. Link and Tatl followed close behind. As they entered the ranch Link slowed Epona to get a better look around.

There was grass, of course, and plenty of it. A few cows stood here and there, quietly grazing. There was a large wooden barn a few hundred yards away from the entrance, with a thatch-roofed wooden cottage positioned close by. The far side of the property was hidden behind a low hill.

Halfway between the entrance and the barn stood two figures: a young girl and a stout man in some kind of costume. The little girl greatly resembled Cremia, like a sister or daughter would. Besides the shoulder length orange hair and the slender figure, she was wearing almost exactly the same clothes as Cremia was: light blouse, yellow scarf, and so on. Link imagined that on closer inspection they would have all the tears and frayed threads of hand-me-downs. The man standing besides her was short and stout. He wore a sickly green fabric suit that covered him hair to toe, and a aqua blue backpack that was stuffed to overflowing with crumbling sheets of parchment.

The little girl waved her arms and said something, and they both burst into laughter. (Of course, 'little' was something of an exaggeration – she looked ten or eleven, about Link's size, if not bigger. But there was something about the way she held herself that suggested youthful innocence, the naïve expression of a child who had never seen her home razed to the ground and her world corrupted by dark magic and darker hearts. That made her little.)

"Hey, it's the loony from the park," said Tatl. It was the first thing she had said since Termina Field, but she said it so casually one would be forgiven for not noticing.

"The park?" said Link, trying to remember.

"Oh, you wouldn't have met him," she said. "This guy is obsessed with faeries. He's a few eggs short of a nest, if you know what I mean. A few humours short of a life force. A few..."

Link nodded. "I know what you mean."

"Anyway, he has this obsession with faeries, and he's creepy, and... well, if you need me, I'll be in your hat."

With that, she wrestled her way underneath Link's cap, and settled there as Epona pulled up alongside the cart. Cremia had already dismounted and was strolling towards the green clad man with a murderous look.

"Tingle!" said Cremia sharply.

The man in green turned, giving Link a better view of his face: pale skin, a sunburnt nose, a triangular goatee. His face seemed locked in a wide grin that instantly set Link's nerves on edge: surely nobody could be _that _happy. He spoke in a nasally voice that was surprisingly high pitched:

"Ah, hello, miss Cremia. I have been having the most delightful conversation with this young lady here..."

"Well, that conversation is over," said Cremia, placing her hands firmly on her hips. "You're leaving, Tingle."

"But we are having such a good time, miss Cremia," said Tingle.

"I don't care. I've told you before, I don't want you around here upsetting the animals and my sister."

At this the little girl shook her head. "But sis, he didn't..."

"Stay out of this!" snapped Cremia. She grimaced and turned to Link. "Sorry about this, Link. Do you know Tingle? He's a little... a little..."

"Nuts," said Tatl from underneath Link's cap. She poked her head out, saw Tingle peering at her, and retreated with a yelp.

"What's this?" said Tingle, taking a step towards Link. "Green clothes... white faerie..."

"_White_?" said Tatl, her voice muffled.

Tingle's eyes were wide. "Sir, could you by any chance be a forest faerie? Oh my..."

He reached forward and grabbed Link's tunic roughly. Cremia took a step towards them, looking ready to come to blows. Link broke the man's grip with the heel of his palm and stepped back, holding his hands up placatingly.

"I don't think..."

Tingle nodded rapidly. "I think I am the same as you, sir. A forest faerie!" His eyes were unfocused, staring straight through Link's head at some apparition miles in the distance. Link found he had to agree with Tatl's assessment – the man was not right in the head.

"Get lost, you creep," said Tatl. Link was quite sure he was the only one who heard her.

"_Tingle_," said Cremia sharply. "Get the hell off my property."

The little girl giggled. "Sis, that's _rude_."

Cremia threw up her hands in despair. "Cow's blood," she moaned, "why does everything have to be so difficult? How did he even get in? I locked the gates."

"He flew in on a balloon. Romani popped it," said the girl with a bright eyed grin. "It was great fun."

Cremia shot the girl a glare. "Well, Romani is going to stay right here, okay?" She sighed and gave Link an apologetic smile. "Mister Tingle here is not supposed to be loitering on my property."

"You're so lucky to have a faerie," muttered Tingle, swaying back and forth on the spot. "Lucky... lucky..."

Cremia grabbed him brusquely by the arm and led him toward the cart. "I'll be right back, you two – sorry, three... This way, Tingle."

"Am I going for a ride in your cart?" said Tingle delightedly.

"Yes," said Cremia, "you can... you can pretend you're a milk crate or something. Come on, get in."

She herded him into the back of the cart and dashed back to her horse as if afraid Tingle would hop out at any moment. With another apologetic look at Link she steered her horse in a half circle and headed for the ranch gates.

Cremia's sister remained there, staring after them. Just as the cart passed over a hill and disappeared from sight she cupped her hands and called:

"Bye, Tingle!"

She stood there, waving, for a few seconds. Then she turned and looked at Link.

"Hey, Grasshopper," she chirped.

"Hi there," said Link, thinking, _Grasshopper?_.

"Oh," said Tatl to no one in particular. "_Oh_, that's a good one." She snickered and quickly covered her mouth.

"Romani missed you," said the girl. She casually flicked a strand of hair back. "What's up?"

"Um..." Link paused, trying to work out how much the girl knew about him. Surely he wouldn't have told somebody like that about the falling moon and Majora's Mask... "Not much. What about you?" Goddesses, this time travel was playing havoc with his head.

"Not much? You ran off with Sis for a whole night, Grasshopper. Sounds like a 'much' to me."

Tatl was unable to contain herself.

"I love it!" she said, bursting into laughter. "Grasshopper. Because you've got the green cap and everything."

Link shot her a look.

The girl beamed. "So faerie girl likes Romani's nickname?"

Tatl returned the grin. "Are you kidding? It's great! _Much _better than his real name..."

"Hey," began Link.

"...whose nickname did you say? Romani?" Tatl paused, considering. Then, "You've got to introduce me to this Romani. Sounds like a smart cookie."

The girl looked confused. "Introduce you? But you already know Romani. We all know each other, don't we?"

"Each other?" said Link. "So..."

Tatl cut him off. "You just said... is this Romani somebody from the..."

"Are you two making fun of Romani?" said the girl, placing her hands on her hips exactly as her sister had done a few minutes before. "Because Romani doesn't like to be made fun of. Not even by you, Grasshopper." She flashed Link a smile.

"So you're Romani?" said Link.

The girl rolled her eyes. "Of course Romani is Romani, silly." She reached over and poked Link in the ribs – a feat that endless legions of cutthroats and monsters had been unable to achieve – and sauntered over to a nearby crate, where she sat and dangled her legs. "You're acting all funny, Grasshopper. You and the faerie girl. What's gotten into you?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing," said Tatl. She glanced at Link and back at Romani, mouthingsomething unreadable.

Romani shrugged. "If you say so. Come on. Want to help milk the cows? They're already half done. Bet we can do the rest before Sis gets back."

"Well..." Link looked in the direction of the ranch entrance. Cremia's cart was visible again, moving back towards them. "Looks like your sister's already back."

"Aww... That's too bad. Maybe next time?"

Link glanced at Tatl for help, but she was staring off to the side with an amused smile. He looked back at the girl.

"We'll see," he said, trying not to sound as uncomfortable as he felt. Having these strangers act so casually towards him felt wrong. It was like waking up in someone else's house and being treated as if you'd lived there all your life.

"Hehe, that's the spirit." Romani hopped to her feet and dashed to her sister's cart as it pulled in. "Hey! Hey, Sis! Guess what? Grasshopper says he's going to help us milk the cows later!"

"What?" said Link. He looked at Cremia quickly. "No, I-"

"And afterwards he's going to help us get rid of that tree out back, Sis, and get all the eggs and everything."

Cremia raised her eyebrows and placed a hand on her sister's shoulder. "Let's not be too eager, young lady. I'm sure Link has plenty of things to worry about already, don't you, Link?"

Link nodded, glad for the lifeline.

Romani shrugged. "Well, I bet he wishes he could." She readjusted her hair, smiling at Link.

"Be that as it may." Cremia leant down and fixed her sister with a critical look. "Romani, have you had any breakfast yet?"

"Uh... might've done?"

"Well, you go in and fix yourself some now, okay?"

"Okay, sis!"

With one last friendly glance, Romani turned and skipped towards the cottage house.

Cremia watched her go with a wistful smile. Then she turned and beckoned them in another direction. "All right, then. Arrows. Follow me."

She led them towards the barn, a large wooden building with a pair of heavy wooden doors to the front. As they walked, Link glanced around the premises, taking in the sights. He didn't know much about agriculture – this was only the second farm he'd ever set foot on – but having been raised in the forests of Hyrule, far from the anonymous chaos of villages and towns, he appreciated how serene it was here.

Then he remembered that there might be nothing left here by tomorrow, and his thoughts grew serious again.

"You'll have to forgive my li... Romani," said Cremia, directing them to a smaller, human-sized door at the barn's side. "We don't get many visitors your age, let alone anyone as interesting as you."

"Interesting?" said Link.

Cremia swung open the door. "Well, who in Termina carries a sword around? Maybe out on the sea, but most people are so superstitious about them. And not to be rude, but a swordsman _your _age? Who happens to be a damn good shot with a bow, if I do say so myself. I'd call that interesting."

The barn was empty, save a few chickens waddling around, but it smelt unmistakably of cow. There were a half dozen stalls to one side, plus a trough filled to overflowing with dirty water. Barrels made of wood and metal lined the walls on the opposite end, while closer to them there were crates, bales of hay and an excess of shovels and pitchforks.

"So who usually comes to the ranch?" said Tatl.

Cremia reached for a crate that was sitting on top of another crate, and began digging through it. "Well, since I took over I've had the occasional visit from neighbouring farms. There's a horse ranch not far from here. I don't like the owners one bit, but you have to be on good terms, don't you?"

"Do you need any help?"

Cremia shook her head and moved on to the next crate. "Leave it to me. I won't be a moment. But no, most of visitors are from Clock Town. Cafes, warehouses, that kind of thing. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about town folk." She stared at the wall with a quiet smile. "Some of them are quite nice, actually... but that's the thing with them, they always prefer to be around one of their own..."

She had stopped moving altogether.

"Are you all right?" said Link.

"Oh, don't worry about me," said Cremia, blinking. She took another crate from the pile and began digging through its contents. "It's been a long night, that's all. Again, I really must thank you for your help dealing with those bandits."

"Bandits?" said Link.

"Well, I have a hunch who they were, but I don't want to cause an upset unless I'm sure. Besides, after the pelting you gave them, I reckon justice has been served."

Link exchanged a glance with Tatl. Every scrap of information about their future selves was potentially important. "So... this was on your way to Clock Town last night, right?" he asked.

"What else would we be talking about?" said Cremia, raising her eyebrows.

"I mean – do you remember at what time Tatl and I joined you?"

"Oh, a few hours after sundown, if I remember. Why do you ask?"

_Uh..._ "No reason."

Tatl twisted her head and gave him a condescending smile.

"Aha!" said Cremia. She pulled open the lid of another crate to reveal neat piles of arrows within. "There you go. How many do you want? Thirty? Sixty?"

"As many as I can carry, I guess," said Link. On instinct he reached behind his back to make sure his bow was still there, wedged behind his sword and shield.

Cremia stared at him for a few seconds, her brow furrowing. "What happened to your quiver, Link?"

"Quiver?" He was quite sure there had been nothing in that chest except the bow.

"Did you lose it?" said Cremia.

"It was falling apart," said Tatl, smoothly filling in Link's silence. "Barely usable any more."

The ranch woman grimaced. "That's too bad. Don't worry, though. I think I have one just like it somewhere over here..."

She walked over to another crate and began rifling through it.

"What's a quiver?" whispered Tatl to Link.

"Holds arrows," Link whispered back.

"Ah. That makes sense."

Cremia returned with a thin leather quiver. "See? Just like your old one. Should hold three or four dozen without straining. Will it do?"

Link shrugged. "A quiver is a quiver. Are you sure you don't need it, though?"

"Nah." Cremia started loading it with arrows. "They're easy enough to buy, and we have a few others about the place. And while we're at it, you're always welcome to take our arrows. Heaven knows, they're never getting used for anything but target practice."

-oOo-

A few quick goodbyes later, and Link and Tatl rode out towards the swamp. By now the sun was high in the sky. In the distance, hundreds upon hundreds of people could be seen slowly filing out of Clock Town, dispersing in all directions. They all went on foot, and from this distance it looked as if they weren't moving at all.

"They've started evacuating," said Link.

"I wonder where they're all heading for?" mused Tatl. "You can't run from a rock that big. Guess it can't hurt to try, though."

As they came closer to the swamp, Epona slowed and began twisting her head from side to side, before coming to a dead halt at the tree line where the path turned grey with shadow.

Link reached forward and stroked his horse calmingly. "What's wrong, Epona?"

"She probably smells the swamp water," said Tatl. "Can't blame her. You wouldn't know with your puny human nose, but it reeks. And we're not even anywhere near it yet. Ugh..."

With no other option, he carefully dismounted and took a few steps in the direction of the swamp.

"I guess we'll have to go on foot..." he said tentatively.

As if she'd been expecting this, Epona gave a friendly neigh then turned and trotted away from them.

Taken by surprise, Link began to run after her but Tatl was in front of him, placing a firm if tiny hand on his shoulder.

"Where is she going?" he said.

Tatl shrugged. "Don't worry about the horse. I'm sure she'll be fine. We have a monster and a moon to deal with."

And they proceeded past the point where the grass ended, past the tree with the stick figures carved into its side, and into the swamp, whereupon the canopy swallowed them whole.

* * *

**A/N:** Sorry I took so long updating. I had a massive case of writer's block that lasted several weeks. Then this entire chapter poured out over a couple of days. Funny how that works sometimes.

Anyway, more fun with the minor characters. I really wasn't going to include Tingle, you know. I was planning on just ignoring him for the sake of personal peace of mind. But then somehow he became a convenient way to thresh out Cremia's personality somewhat. Yeah, that's right, I'm saying that Tingle is a creepy, redundant character. Deal with it.

Your regular oh-crud-the-world's-going-to-end-quick-kill-some-monsters program will resume next time. I think.


	25. The First

**INSOMNIA**_**  
**_**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

Like before, the climb to the volcano peak was long and sweltering. Tatl wasn't too fussed: uphill, downhill, it was all the same to her. But she knew that legs were bad with slopes, so she made sure to keep an eye on Link. Just in case.

Speaking of which, what an _awful _name. Growing up with it must have been murder. She had no idea why he hadn't just changed it to something respectable like 'Leaf'. Who knew, maybe it was the reason he had turned out so weird. Years of repression and nasty names could do that. Whoever had decided on 'Link' must have been a total vegetable... she almost felt bad thinking about it.

She glanced back. The kid was a few feet behind her, scrabbling up a forty-five degree incline.

"You okay there?" she asked him.

The show of sympathy was enough to clear her conscience. She felt better straight away. Link said something in reply, but Tatl's mind was already on other things. For example – the temple that they were marching back towards, the monster which they were supposed to deal with... and the falling moon. How were they supposed to stop that? Until a few days ago she hadn't known that anything as powerful as Majora's mask existed. If it took that much power to bring down the moon, how much power would it take to stop the thing that was bringing down the moon? And on and on...

Okay, to be honest, she kind of enjoyed the weirdness of this all. All those years spent with Tael, and later on Skull Kid, had certainly been fun, but in all the madness of the last few days she'd gotten to see things like that temple and the inside of the Deku palace, things she would never have heard of otherwise. And she had no doubt that there'd be more interesting sightseeing to come. If only the circumstances were a little more pleasant: friendlier companion, less head-hurting time travel, more time to sleep...

Romani Ranch. It had been a fair few years since she'd last been there, and the owner was different back then. The two redheads were probably the last fellow's daughters. She wondered how that had happened. He hadn't struck her as the lovable type.

And having that Cremia woman recognise her and everything. Had they _really_ met before? What would happen if they didn't show up whenever they were supposed to show up? Maybe the world would implode, just like that, over a milk cart.

"You know what we need?" she said thoughtfully.

"What do we need?" said Link. He swatted away a beetle the size of his head.

"The Bombers – you remember the Bombers – they all carry around these little notebooks with them. Keeping track of all the promises they've made, and, you know..." She smiled, remembering that one time with the exploding ink. "But yeah, all this time travel business. How we were supposed to be at Romani Ranch last night and everything. It'd be way easier to just write down instead of having to remember every little detail like that..."

"I don't know," said Link. "I don't have room to carry ink around..."

"Uh huh," said Tatl, growing bored again. Just typical, shooting down every bit of advice she had to offer. And then he acted as if she wasn't helping.

Nothing like her brother. Sure, Tael could be rude at times, and he wasn't above a little roughhousing from time to time. But at least at the end of the day she could sit back and say that she understood him, that she had some idea what was going on inside his head. Even Skull Kid had been a half-decent person, back before this had all started.

But this Link kid was a whole different cage of birds. His arrogance was unbelievable. Seriously – the way he was acting after he had found his horse, it was like he'd forgotten their anniversary. It was like he thought everything was a matter of life and death, or that he was the centre of the universe or something.

"Hurry up," she snapped, frustrated. "We don't exactly have all day."

"I'm going as fast as I can," Link replied. He didn't even sound angry, the arrogant little twit.

"Well, go faster," said Tatl.

She sighed tiredly, and looked back towards town. She missed her brother. Skull Kid too. She missed a lot of things right now.

**-oOo-**

**Woodfall Temple  
The Southern Swamp**

Damp stone, mouldy vines, low torches. Distantly, the trill of angry voices and the throb of beating drums.

Once they were inside Woodfall temple, Link and Tatl picked up where they had left off, exploring the sunken temple room by room. They passed through a half dozen narrow corridors, poking their heads in and out of more empty store rooms and unkempt gardens than either of them would have liked to count.

Not long afterwards they ran into a minor obstacle. They were in a high-ceilinged chamber. Its walls were lined with jars that smelt of incense and medicinal herbs. A thick pool of swamp water divided the room into two halves, spanned by a thin wooden bridge. There was a rotting wooden door on the far side, and Link started walking towards the bridge, already adding that door into his mental map of this place (tangled and spirally, like the leaves of a fern).

"Woah," said Tatl, holding up a hand. "Watch it."

"What is it?" said Link, coming to a stop.

The faerie shot up thirty feet or so into the air. "That," she said, pointing directly in front of her.

It was another Skulltula, hiding camouflaged amongst the ceiling's stark shadows. It dangled from a thick silken thread directly above the bridge. Its legs traced slow circles in the air, strangling an imaginary victim.

"Clever," Link muttered. Finding a choke point – that was smarter behaviour than he'd come to expect from Skulltulas. The ones in this temple did seem more vicious than the usual kind. Maybe it was related to the curse.

"What?" said Tatl, "no thank you?"

Ignoring her, Link paced sideways past the bridge.

"This isn't the first time I've saved your life, either."

"You didn't save my life," said Link distractedly. He had a clear view of the spider's underbelly from here. And if he could see it, he could certainly shoot it. "You just saw a spider."

"A spider that would have squashed you like a bug if you hadn't known about it."

Link pulled out the bow from its resting place, jammed unceremoniously between his sword and shield. He marvelled again at how light and slim the weapon was – far more elegant than any bow of Hylian design – and pulled an arrow from the quiver, inspecting it. The arrow was longer than he'd expected, but then again he had never used a bow as a child. Either way, it wasn't a big deal.

"Seriously, though," said Tatl, "what's it going take to get you to say thank you to me? You're polite to everyone else. You sucked up to those crony old _witches_, for crying out loud."

Link nocked the arrow and pulled it gently back. The tension in the drawstring was almost perfect – taut, but not quite taut enough to make him break a sweat. What was more, his right hand's grip on the frame didn't slide as the arrow stretched it back. (His last bow had been old and used, covered with a perpetual layer of grime that always slid if he took too long aiming his shots.) It was like this bow had been made for him.

"Okay, I get it, you don't care about people smaller than you. Fair enough. Some..."

"I'm trying to aim," said Link as politely as he could.

"Oh. Okay. Whatever you say." She dropped into a perch on his shoulder.

Link tried not to look annoyed. He was a little out of practice with his archery, and a captive audience wasn't going to make things any easier. He closed his eyes, trying to picture the trajectory of the arrow through the air: a windless room, nothing but gravity's gentle arc to worry about. It shouldn't have been this hard. It wasn't as if he hadn't shot hundreds of arrows before...

"_My, my," the man said, his eyes burning straight through Link. "Shooting a man as he talks. So little tact."_

_With a grimace he ripped the arrow out of his neck and let it clatter to the ground, bloodless. There wasn't so much as a scar to show for it._

_"And such speed. Such _violence_. No hesitation. I can already see we're not as different as I thought."_

"_Don't listen to him, Link!" A blue-white faerie, darting around behind the man. "Try again. The light spell."_

_Lost in the warlock's stare, it took Link a moment to understand. The light spell. Of course. He whipped another arrow out of his quiver-_

_With an annoyed scowl, the man raised one gauntleted hand and thrust it out behind him, palm out. A wave of shadow rippled from his curled fingers, and the faerie was flung back. _

_She smashed into a stained glass window, a spider's web of cracks forming behind her. She nearly cried out in pain, checked herself, and shouted: "Link! I can't help you! These waves of darkness... I can't get close... I'm sor-"_

_The man twisted his hand in the air and another shadowy bolt seared through the prone faerie. She screamed and screamed and the man turned to gaze at Link. His face was arrogantly calm._

"_I must commend you, boy. Knowing that I will squash you like a fly, knowing that you cannot possibly harm me... What you lack in wisdom and power, you certainly make up for with blind..."_

Skulltula. Link opened his eyes. He was holding a bow, aiming it. The next step was to release the arrow, shooting a living target, a tangible enemy. Skulltula.

The fingers of his left hand snapped open, and the arrow went hurtling through the air. They sunk straight into the spider's abdomen, about a foot higher than where he'd been aiming for. The creature screeched in pain, dropped from its hiding spot, bounced off the side of the bridge and landed in the rancid swamp water.

"Nice shot," said Tatl.

Dazed – to think that he was here in this room right now – he shook his head. "It went high."

"Still. I've seen bandits with worse aim."

Link frowned for a few seconds longer. After a moment an explanation occurred to him: his previous bow had had a slack bowstring, while this one was in perfect condition. He was overcompensating.

"Anyway." Tatl motioned to the bridge. "Shall we?"

**-oOo-**

They continued down the slick wet stone of the corridors, up and down, back and forth, snaking ever closer to the far side of the temple.

The steady drumming chant at the edge of his hearing was driving Link mad. Every time he was getting used to it, the rhythm would skip a beat, forcing itself back into the forefront of his mind. He was sure the noise was the monster's work. What better way to deal with enemies than to shatter their resolves before they even got close?

"Hey, Link," said Tatl, pronouncing the name like a punch line.

"Yes?" he panted in between breaths. They had reached a right spiral staircase, and it was taking him some effort to climb the knee-height slabs of stone.

"Your horse's name was Epony, right?"

"Epona." These steps were ridiculous. How could the Deku scrubs climb them? Their legs were even shorter than his.

"Whatever. So if that's your _horse_'s name, then who's Navi?"

Link stopped with his left foot resting on the next step up. He stared at Tatl for a few hard seconds before saying anything.

"Where _did_ you hear that name?" he said.

Tatl rolled her eyes. "You were saying it in your sleep. Not to mention every single time you zone out."

Great. Had he really been that careless? "I don't zone out."

"You so do. You didn't really take half a minute to aim a single arrow, did-" She paused, just on the brink of another tirade. Her lips curled into a grin. "Oh, nice try, kid. But you're not changing the subject that easily. Who is she?"

Annoyed, Link shook his head and continued up the staircase. "It's not important."

She quickly caught up with him and hovered alongside his ear. "Hey, I want to know."

"We have better things to talk about," said Link.

Tatl smirked. "Sensitive, are we?"

They reached the top of the staircase. The room ahead was cramped and circular. In its middle was a small raised dais shaped like a sundial – a strange centrepiece, given that there was no way for sunlight to reach the room. A dozen torches ringed the walls, casting faint shadows in all directions.

Link stepped towards the centre of the room, casting his eyes around. A third of the way around was another passageway, stretching off into the dark.

"I mean, I'm just curious," said Tatl, drifting casually alongside. "Just a hint? Pet? Little sister? Whatever the difference is..."

"I don't have to tell-"

"The Great Faerie once made me and my brother scrub clean the clock tower roof. Took us the better part of a month."

Link laughed, unable to help himself. "You're lying."

"No joke," said Tatl. "Seriously. Ask her. She called it a lesson in humility."

"Wow." Her? Humility?

"I guess all that rotten fish wasn't going to clean itself up." She shrugged. "Anyway, now you know all about me. Your turn."

Link sighed. The faerie clearly wasn't giving up. "Okay. Just one question." He reached the central dais and paused. For a moment the room seemed to get darker.

"One question. Okay..." She rubbed her chin, looking him up and down. "Navi. She someone in your family?"

He let out his breath. "No," he said. "Now-"

"Wait, wait, wait. Girlfriend? Wife?"

Link laughed and shook his head. "Nothing like that. Navi is a faerie."

"A what?" said Tatl.

"A faerie."

"Oh." She blinked. "Huh."

All of the torches in the room went out without a sound, and they were plunged into darkness.

Link cast his head around wildly. He couldn't make out a thing; the only thing in sight was Tatl's glowing yellow form.

Before he could so much as ask 'what was that?', Tatl was speaking. "Get your sword out, kid."

"What-"

"Sword."

Link drew his sword and stood still, looking around. An eerie silence had settled upon the pitch black room.

Tatl was by his ear. "Blackboes. The little shadow ball things. There's a couple dozen of them, moving pretty slowly. See their eyes?"

He couldn't. He was still adjusting to the darkness. Dozens of dots danced in front of his eyes, and he couldn't tell which belonged to the blackboes and which were after-images.

Link turned from side to side, sweeping his sword through the air. It was useless; if the creatures even noticed they didn't react. "Where are they?" he said.

"There," Tatl pointed, her hands now a burning bright against the rest of the room. "There. Another one there. Closest one is to your left."

"I can't see them," he said, unnerved. He remembered the blackboes they'd encountered near the temple entrance; how hard the sentient balls of darkness were to spot in a dimly lit room. Here, without any light at all save Tatl's, the blackboes were rendered completely invisible.

"Just calm down and attack it."

"I _am _calm." The worst thing of all was that the creatures were making no sound. None of his senses were any help.

"Look, there are just a lot of them, that's all."

Link fought to keep his voice level. "I can't _see _them."

"Okay," said Tatl, "don't panic, okay? Just slash right in front of you... _now_."

He swung his sword from left to right, once then twice, both times failing to connect with anything. Nothing. He was fighting against enemies he could neither see nor hear and the one person who could actually see them-

"Calm down, kid. You got it first try." Tatl sounded satisfied.

"What?"

"I said you got it. Okay, turn right."

He turned. "But I didn't feel-"

"More right. There. Get ready to slash. You didn't feel anything because blackboes, well, they aren't very solid. They... _slash!_..."

Link swept his sword again. This time he thought he felt something mid-swing: just the tiniest amount of resistance, as if the air was slightly thicker in one spot.

"What _are _those things?" he said.

"Magicky. Dunno where they come from – one's right behind you..."

He spun around to face the other way, slashed, and lowered, his weight, preparing to turn again.

"...but don't let that fool you. Left. Not that far left. They all jump on you – behind you – and weigh you down so you can't get rid of them – on your right!... Then they just slowly suck all the heat out of your body. Nasty way to go."

Link nodded. Even if the information didn't actually help him fight, it made him feel calmer. Every little detail about a creature – its name, its habitat, its fighting style – made it that much more grounded, that much less forbidding. As Navi had said, that all proved it was just as mortal as anything else.

"How many of them are there?"

"A few dozen, I think. One's coming up in front of you."

"Thanks." He raised his sword. "Can we get out of here without waiting around to see?"

"Sure. Just after – okay, I think it's going to jump – going for your chest – head – chest-"

He swung the sword, felt it slice through shadow, and nodded. "Which way?"

"Turn – ah, just follow me."

Flying backwards, she beckoned him off to the side. Link followed her, slowly at first, then breaking into a confident jog. He could tell by the ground that they were in an earthen tunnel, long and narrow.

Gradually, pace by pace, the light began to return.

**-oOo-**

They kept silent for a while after leaving that room. They continued through the temple, slowing down to deal with the occasional locked door or broken ladder, but neither spoke a word.

Link was still a little shaken by the experience – even in the Shadow Temple of Kakariko there had always been the slightest _whoosh _of a scythe or the faintest silhouette of an enemy to go on. Just then, he hadn't even been able to tell he was in danger, and to him that was scarier than any menacing movements. For her part, Tatl seemed lost in thought as well.

Eventually they came across a chamber with neither floor nor ceiling but a giant abyss spanned by thick tree stumps. Sunlight illuminated the pit for a few hundred feet, but it went down much further than the eye could see. It was as they were carefully making their way around the room's spiralling perimeter that Link remembered what he had forgotten in his panic.

"Tatl?" he said.

"Hmm?" She looked a little taken aback at his talking. "What is it?"

"Those blackboes. In that dark room. How many of them did I end up killing?"

She shrugged. "There were a lot of blackboes. You didn't get even half of them."

"But how many?"

She frowned thoughtfully. "Uh... a little over a half dozen. Seven or eight. Why? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," said Link. Seven. About as many as he'd thought. That plus the nest of spiders they'd encountered in the previous room.

Tatl looked at him sceptically. "Oh, really? Nothing?"

"Nothing important," said Link.

She nodded and looked away. Then, as if unable to resist, she turned back and added, "So this faerie friend of yours..."

"It's personal," said Link. "Bu... just drop it." (Had he been about to say _buzz off_? Where had that phrase even come from? Maybe bad puns were contagious...)

The door at the top of the room was large and circular. It was throbbing madly in time to the muffled drumbeats they'd heard all the way through the temple.

Tatl stated the obvious. "Looks like we're close."

Link nodded slowly. He stared at the door long and hard. It was unmarked, save for a crudely sketched charcoal outline on one corner. The outline vaguely resembled Majora's mask, the foul artefact that had possessed the Skull Kid. The charcoal looked recent.

"Well?" said Tatl. "There's a monkey roasting on a spit in the Deku palace, in case you've forgotten. Stop dawdling."

Link pressed his hand up against the door. For a moment, visions of past antagonists flashed before his eye: sadistic witches, serpentine dragons, skeletal horsemen. Then he swung it to the side and stepped through.

The room on the other side of the door was so tall that one couldn't see all the way to the top. The stone brick walls formed a wide circle some hundred feet wide. Every exposed surface was covered with intricate angular designs, their colours faded from the years. There was a Deku flower in the centre of the room. Torches lined the walls at regular intervals, burning impossibly bright.

Once he and Tatl were safely inside, Link slid the door shut behind him. The drumming and chanting they'd heard from all the way back at the temple entrance was now crystal clear, coming from all directions at once.

"Well?" the faerie said, looking around. "There's nothing here."

"There has to be something," said Link. They'd explored every other room in the temple, and there were no other exits here.

"Well, if you see something I don't..."

Link held up a hand. "Shh."

"I mean – what? What?"

"Do you hear the chanting?" said Link.

Tatl's brow furrowed for a few seconds. Then she turned to Link with a shrug and said:

"No."

There was an ear piercing, high pitched hollering noise, and both Link and Tatl looked up. Something large was hurtling towards them from the top of the room.

Link's jaw dropped a little. He took a step back.

A creature smashed down onto the floor in the centre of the room, landing in a crouch. It was large, tall, and humanoid, easily thirty feet tall. Its entire body was covered in brightly painted stripes and shapes. In its right hand was a sword, glistening sharp and nearly its own height. In its left hand was a shield in the shape of a elongated diamond.

Its face was what Link noticed most of all. No, not a face, a mask: a brown wooden mask with a permanent angry scowl carved into its centre. Glowing red pupils shone through its eye holes, the same colour as the moon's. Like a headdress, long feathers were crudely fastened to the edges of the mask with blood stains at the points where feather met wood.

Link drew his sword carefully.

"What _is_ that?" he said aloud.

"Who cares?" said Tatl, wide eyed. "Let's get the hell out of here."

"We've gotten this far already." Inside he was trying to assess the creature's threat – he'd faced many swordsmen and many oversized creatures, but never one that was both. As he watched, it stood and began to bounce lightly on the balls of its feet.

Tatl was tugging at his tunic, trying to force him back towards the door. (She was having about as much success as could be expected when the size of a dragonfly tries to move something the size of a wolf.) "Come on, let's get out of here before it's too late!"

"You've never heard about anything remotely like this?" said Link. He carefully stepped around the perimeter of the room, making sure the creature was over two sword lengths away from him.

"What difference does it make?" Tatl's voice had risen to a fever pitch. "It's a giant, bloodthirsty, wingshredding _monster_ and it's going to beat you to a pulp and then beat _me_ to a pulp and then where are we all going to be? What the hell were we thinking coming near this place..."

"You don't know anything?" said Link, eyes locked on the monster. "Its name, its weaknesses. Even rumours. Stories."

Again, Tatl tugged at him to no effect. Giving up on this, she stuck herself in front of his face and began talking even faster. "What, you want to know its weak spot? Look at it! There _is_ no weak spot! It's a big wingshredding monster with a big wingshredding sword and shield! There? Happy?" She made a choked noise – probably a hysterical laugh, possibly a hysterical scream. "You want to know its name? You want to know its freaking _life story_? Okay, how about Stupidkidslayer? It's Kidslayer, the horrible killer of Woodfall. It's, um, Drumdrum, the evil, chanting, sword-and-shield-ing, uh, masked jungle warrior. It's Odolwa, the – _look out_!"

Link detected the flash of movement before the faerie's warning reached his ears, and he dropped to his knees and raised his shield over his head, turtle-like, just before the monster's long sword swept horizontally over him.

As soon as he was sure the weapon had passed over him, Link sprang to his feet and dashed backwards, keeping his eyes on his opponent until he was well out of sword range.

The monster – Drumdrum, or Odolwa, or whatever it was called – slowly turned to face him. It lowered its shield to the side, leaving its body exposed, and trilled jestingly. It was a crude taunt, made all the more frustrating by its sheer size.

Link sidestepped again. The creature followed his movements, smoothly spinning to remain facing him.

Big _and_ agile. Link frowned.

"Come on, let's get out of here," said Tatl.

Link launched himself into a sprint, running straight towards the creature. Its legs were the only part he could reach, but if he could bring it to the ground the fight would be over quickly. He zigzagged as he went, never staying still long enough for Odolwa to hit him.

The monster lunged forward and shoved its shield towards Link. Link saw the attack coming and raised his own shield, but the power of the blow knocked him to the ground. He scrambled upwards and rolled out of the way of another sword swipe.

Tatl laughed hysterically. "Do you not get this? It's going to beat you to a pulp. You will... okay, fine! Look, if you're not going, I'm still..." Her eyes widened even more. "Wait, you closed the door? Why the _hell_ did you close the door? Wingshreds, do you _want_ us dead?"

"There has to be an angle of attack," Link muttered to himself. He bent his knees again, preparing for another sprint. If Odolwa tried that trick again, maybe he-

"Kid! _Link!_ If you get close to him, you'll be beaten!" She hovered right in front of his eyes. "_Do you understand me?_ No, don't walk _towards _it! Are we even speaking the same language here!?"

Link kept his eyes on his opponent. Odolwa was still waiting there. Its legs were slightly bent, primed and ready to move at the slightest provocation.

_Don't walk towards it. _Maybe Tatl had the right idea there.

He took a step back, swapping his sword for his bow in one seamless movement. With the adrenaline in his veins it was all coming back, the way he always used to pull the arrow from his quiver, his mind already aiming before his arms made it together. From thought to completion it took him all of two seconds to fire the first arrow. He'd been faster once, too.

His first shot was aimed at Odolwa's face, the most vulnerable spot. When it crooked its head out of the way, he stepped forward and shot another arrow for its chest. The monster intercepted with its shield and Link's next arrow was already flying towards it, aiming for the sword shoulder. With an agile twist of the body, the monster avoided the shot, and Link's next arrow was flying towards its face.

The projectile connected. The monster stumbled back, flailing around with a maddened cry.

Certain his foe was blinded, Link sprinted forwards again, moving past Odolwa's guard and towards the monster's nearest leg. He slashed through it once, releasing a spray of not blood but some black bile-like substance. He swung his sword a second time...

...and Odolwa leaped up into the air and landed on the other side of the room. Link turn around and found it staring back angrily, apparently having recovered from the arrow.

Link pulled out his bow again, and the monster leapt directly up and out of sight.

"Where did it go?" said Link, instantly on guard. He preferred an enemy he could see.

"_Who... cares?_" hissed Tatl.

They looked up in the direction that Odolwa had disappeared. Nothing.

"Are you trying to make a point here?" said Tatl weakly. "Because whatever it is, you win. Please. Let's just go while we can."

"And then what?" said Link. He took a few steps back – if the monster decided to drop onto the floor again, it was safer near the walls. "We've come all this way."

"So what? Getting us both killed isn't going to fix anything!"

A distant humming reached Link's ears.

"What is that?" he said.

The air above them seemed to grow dark. The humming became steadily louder and louder.

Tatl looked up and sighed, sounding halfway between despair and resignation. "That's a _lot _of bugs."

With an overwhelming drone, thousands of moths descended from above, buzzing and spreading until they filled the room from wall to wall. Link threw up one arm to protect his face, but he couldn't cover himself completely, and more than a few scratched across the surface of his skin. He thought there might be blood but he couldn't see.

"Tatl?" he shouted.

"Over here!" Her voice seemed distant.

He turned, but the air was thick with insects. He swung his sword wildly but the cloud of moths simply rippled around his sword and stabilised a moment later.

Another wave of insects pelleted Link like hailstones. "It's not working!" he said through gritted teeth.

Tatl's voice, somewhere behind him. "Open the door!"

"No," said Link. "We can't run."

"Not us, the bugs! It's brighter outside!"

Link winced as another dozen insects slipped between his hands and his face. "Are you sure that-"

"_Open the door!_"

Link stepped back, reaching out with his sword until he felt the walls of the room. With his head ducked low, he ran around the room's circumference, stopping when he felt the smooth surface of the door. With both hands he pushed it open.

The effect was immediate. The moths closest to him flew out of the room straight away, attracted by the dying rays of daylight outside. As they went, the light streamed further into the room, causing more moths to fly towards the exit. Within half a minute Link could see the opposite wall again.

"See?" said Tatl. She flew towards him, swerving to dodge a few mindless insects. "Worked, didn't it?"

"Yeah," said Link slowly. "Thanks."

An angry wail from above signalled Odolwa's return.

"Oh, great," said Tatl.

Link motioned outside with his head. "You can run if you want. There's nothing stopping you."

There was a loud screeching noise and flashes of light from above. The monster had its sword embedded in the far wall and was skidding down. Sparks flew, setting some of the remaining moths on fire. It hit the ground and bent its knees into a crouch. Link grimaced and mirrored its foot position.

Odolwa shot forward with incredible speed, carving deadly patterns in the air with its sword. Link dashed out of harm's way, absorbing one or two of the blows with his shield.

With a longing look at the open doorway, Tatl followed him. "I hate you," she muttered.

Something about the comment made Link smile, but then the monster's sword was already hurtling towards him and he was diving out of the way.

For nearly a minute this continued – Odolwa stepped in and swung its giant sword, and Link was barely able to avoid it, time and time again – until Link managed to break away from the monster and reach the opposite end of the room, pausing to catch his breath.

"You're losing," said Tatl matter-of-factly.

"I'm not losing," panted Link. "I got its ankle before. It hasn't touched me."

"You're more tired than it is. You're losing."

She was right, of course, but he wasn't about to admit that to someone who didn't seem to know the slightest thing about combat. "There's always a way."

"Sure, sure. Come on. Cut your losses."

Link stared at Odolwa, thinking. The monster's agility was ridiculous for something of its size – big creatures were supposed to be slow and lumbering, nothing like this. Odolwa would probably still be dangerous to him if it was human size, and that was a sobering thought. There was no way he could win this fight on strength or speed alone.

Something by the monster's feet caught his eye. It was the Deku flower in the room's centre, the one he had spotted when he first entered. From the way the designs on the floor formed concentric circles around it, the flower must have had some ceremonial function, but right now all that Link really saw was that it was right next to the monster's foot. A brief memory of momentum resurfaced, and with it, the germ of an idea.

"I'm going to try something," he said, glancing at Tatl. (Could Odolwa understand him? He kept his voice low just in case.) "Let me know when it's above the Deku flower."

Tatl raised her eyebrows. "You're not going to try that thing you did with the Gekko, are you?"

"With the what?" Link pulled out his bow and a single arrow.

"Never mind. Go. Go!"

Link broke into a run, firing his bow at Odolwa. The first arrow went for the monster's face, which it deflected with its shield. The next two arrows it sidestepped; the next one hit it in the shoulder but it shrugged it off.

By this point Link was just twenty feet away from the Deku flower. He slipped the bow away, ducked his head, and kept running towards it. Odolwa stepped to the side, half-blocking his path. It hissed and readied its sword-

-and slashed horizontally, and Link dropped to the ground, sliding under the sword with only feet to spare. As soon as he was underneath the monster, he donned the Deku mask _pain tendrils tearing into his face draining all the blood forcing sap and chlorophyll through his system screaming_ and dived onto the Deku flower, which swallowed him whole.

Safely inside, Link closed his eyes and gathered his thoughts. This wasn't any more dangerous than any of the other things he'd once done. There was nothing to be scared of.

_There's always something to be scared of_, said the Kokiri boy. _Always._

"Kid?" shouted Tatl from somewhere distantly. "It's right above you."

Now or never. With the moon still falling, Link knew which he'd rather take.

A simple thought, as natural as releasing an arrow, and the twisted vines and roots of the Deku flower moved as one, whipping upwards. With arms and legs folded in over his already compact body, Link was flung vertically through the air like a stone from a slingshot, whistling straight past Odolwa's chest and clipping it on the chin, knocking its head back in the process. The monster stumbled backwards a few feet, as dazed as the victim of any well-placed uppercut.

Link's upward trajectory continued for a second more before he felt the sickening lurch of gravity beginning to assert himself. He waited until he was almost motionless, then reached for where his ears normally were and ripped off the mask.

There was a slight moment of dizziness as the transformation magic was repealed. Then Link was in his own human body, much heavier than any Deku scrub and still some fifty feet above Odolwa's head. His sword was in his hand.

_You may be bigger and faster than me..._, he thought.

Odolwa, whatever it really was called, and wherever it came from, was undoubtedly a skilled fighter. Presented with such unusual behaviour, a skilled fighter would almost certainly have reacted, like by raising its shield, lashing out at its opponent in midair, or even just stepping back.

Instead, at the exact moment that Link was removing his Deku mask, Tatl had risen up to the monster's head height and begun zooming towards its head.

"I'm not really doing this," she muttered, as she hurtled closer. "I'm not really doing this, this is all just a bad dream, I'm just going to... wingshreds... okay, just... _hey, over here, you giant oaf!_..."

At the last minute she swerved, missing the monster's masked face by just a few feet. Odolwa turned its head slightly, following her trajectory until it was satisfied she was no immediate threat. Then it looked back up and something small and green zipped straight through its field of vision. For a split second as he fell past, the boy's eyes met the monster's.

_...but you're no Ganon._

Held tightly in a two-handed downward grip, Link's sword pierced straight through the monster's neck. The blade glowed with friction as Link hurtled onwards towards the ground, tearing a vertical, bile-oozing line through the monster's chest and stomach before catching on the metal belt fastened around its waist.

Link lost his grip on the sword and tumbled towards the ground. He splayed his arms, but they did little to soften the impact as he landed on his back.

Odolwa screeched in agony and dropped to its knees. With a violent shudder, its sword and shield dissolved into a swarm of flies that burst into flames and fell to the ground like so many dead leaves.

With one trembling hand, it reached in Link's direction. Then its entire body glowed and shrank into nothing, leaving only the mask, which clattered noisily to the ground.

The drumming stopped.

Tatl landed a safe distance from the mask. "Is it dead?" she said. Then, noticing Link: "Hey, are you okay?"

He gasped, sucking in air. His ears were ringing from the fall, but as far as he could tell nothing was broken.

Tatl was by his side immediately. "That was amazing," she gushed with a disbelieving grin. "You just killed it. Just like that! Of course I helped. But still, that was amazing. Where did you learn to _do_ that?"

With a groan, Link rolled over and staggered to his feet. His sword wasn't far away. It had clattered to the ground near the mask when the monster had vanished.

"Is it dead?" he said.

"How should I know?" said Tatl. "You're the super monster killer."

"You're the... magic person," he managed, too dizzy to finish the sentence properly.

"Oh." Tatl squinted in the mask's direction. "Wow. That is some nasty dark magic there. Looks a little like the stuff Skull Kid had on you, but a lot more..."

"Evil?" said Link. He crouched and picked up his sword.

"Kind of. Evil comes in flavours. If you think of your Deku curse as the rotten peaches kind of evil, then this thing is more like... burnt wood, I guess."

"...meaning..."

Tatl shrugged. "Now you know. If you want to be safe, just smash the mask up. Whatever magic's left in there won't last once there's nothing real – uh, physical – to hold it together."

"Break the mask?" said Link.

"Can't hurt."

"All right." He felt exhausted. He didn't want to move. "All right."

Gripping his sword in one hand, Link walked towards the fallen monster's mask. Still off balance from the fall, his steps were uneven. To steady himself he stared straight ahead, looking more closely at the thing he was about to destroy.

It was a wooden mask, its surface made hard and dark by centuries of resin, streaks of tribal markings and mangled feathers, and as Link looked at its eyes something inside its lifeless form seemed to stare back, and suddenly it was inside his head and he could see _the swamp rotting, the Skull Kid laughing, saying, this is the mask of a jungle warrior, forged in the thick suffocating mists of the swamp and flames of xenophobia, generations upon generations of tribesmen living in fear of false gods and greater fear still of the outside world, and year by year the walls rise, an unbreakable line between 'us' and 'them', and your friends, what kind of people are they?, I wonder, do those people think of you as a friend?, and the sky blackens and the days slow to a standstill for when you trust nobody, time has no meaning-_

Somehow, through all the noise that was raging inside his head, Link slowly pushed past it. With his mind a blank, he raised his sword and brought it down upon Odolwa's remains. The sword struck home.

The mask shattered into a thousand fragments with a rush of air and a ripple of shadow that made Link's hair stand on end. Then, as the traces of dark magic faded away, a pinpoint of light appeared where the mask had been.

"What is that?" whispered Tatl.

"More dark magic?" Link shrugged. "You'd know more than I do."

They both stood there, unmoving. Suddenly, the point of light expanded, growing into a line, a circle, a sphere...

Tatl gasped. "Not the... monster... Something... else..." She blinked, her pupils dilating. Her mouth hung open.

Sensing the change in his companion, Link took a step away from the light, reaching for his sword.

"No," said Tatl. Her voice was soft, as if she were dreaming. "It won't hurt you..."

Moments later the light had engulfed them both. It faded, and they were no longer in Woodfall.

They were standing on a giant pillar, so tall that it stretched above the clouds. He could see them, the clouds, forming a sea that stretched off in all directions, weightless and picture book puffy. Then at their level there were more clouds still, some forming thick cliffs in the distance, others flowing down from the open sky above like wispy waterfalls. There were bubbles everywhere, or so Link thought: every time he tried to look closer at one it disappeared with a pop. Everything was tinged with the faintest shade of autumn green.

Link's body felt unnaturally light, like a stray gust of wind might blow him away. He had enough presence of mind to realise what that meant.

"This isn't real," he said. "It's a dream."

Beside him, Tatl half smiled. "You don't say, kid. Any idea what's going on?"

From the distance, beyond the forests of mist, came a long moan, deep and mournful.

"Did you hear that?" said Link.

"Of course I..." Tatl gasped. "What's that?"

She pointed and Link followed with his eyes. For a moment, he thought he made out something obscured behind the layers and layers of cloud. A long, misshapen limb. The hint of a face. An eye the size of a house, dark and unreadable. But it was all too far away to be sure.

The creature – no, that word would never do, it could never evoke the majesty of the thing Link had seen for a fraction of a second – the _giant _moaned again, and this time Link heard something else with it, the quietest hint of a plucked lyre and a rippling harp. Music. Even as it wept, the creature was singing.

Listening to the giant's pained melody, Link had the strangest sense of deja vu. He was sure he had never heard it before, and yet it sounded... _right_.

He opened his mouth to ask Tatl if she knew the song, but she silenced him with a finger.

"Wait..." she breathed. "Listen... it's saying something..."

Saying something? Link kept his ears pricked, trying to hear something else between the notes, but a few minutes past and he found nothing.

"I can't hear words," he said in a low voice. "Only notes."

"Well, don't just stand there," Tatl whispered back. Her eyes were still fixed in the giant's direction. They were glazing over. "Get your ora... get your instrument out. That crying must mean something. You know it has to."

Link looked down. His ocarina was in his hands. He wasn't sure if he had taken it out by instinct, or if it had simply appeared there when the vision had demanded it. He put the instrument to his lips and closed his eyes.

The giant's song was simple once he listened enough: it was what Saria would have called an arpeggio, a fingering exercise, a simple line that ran up and down a single chord. Yet somehow, between the giant's sonorous voice and the strange dreamy atmosphere of this place, the melody changed from structured study to orderly oath.

As soon as he had played the last note, the giant's voice changed. It was no longer singing, it was now moaning a single low note that lasted half a minute and more.

"What are you saying?" Link called into the mist and fog. "What does the song mean?"

Silence.

"'Call us.'"

Link turned.

"That's what it's saying," whispered Tatl. There was a reverence in her voice Link had never thought her capable of. "'Call us'..."

The clouds parted, and for an infinitesimal moment Link could see the giant's face, inhuman and venerable. Then it blinked and the vision went collapsing in upon itself. Moments later they were back in Woodfall temple where, for now, silence reigned.

* * *

**A/N:** I know I say this every time, but if you have any constructive comments to make, this chapter would be a great time. (Thanks as usual to all the people who left flattering reviews. They're like a drug. They keep me coming back for more. What? That sounds creepy? Don't be ridiculous.)

Now, in no particular order:

- The flashback in this chapter ("My, my..."). Before now, I've mostly referred to Link's past with the occasional sentence, as opposed to the giant few-hundred-words block of text this time round. Did it work for you? Was it too much of an interruption?

(Just to be clear, I'm not moving to this style of 'flashback' permanently. Personally I'd rather just mix and match, using whatever seems best for the mood and the pacing of the story. There will be at least one more long-ish flashback like this in the second last chapter. I mean, if we make it there.)

- This whole drumming-chanting thing: a few chapters ago, some reviewers seemed to think I had invented the whole thing. On that note, you should all totally search up the music for Woodfall temple (which is one of my favourite dungeon themes from the N64 games), and then ramp up the 'sinister' meter.

- The end of cycle 1 is nigh. Just throwing that up there. I reckon it'll be two or three chapters more, hopefully pretty short, and hopefully including an 'interlude' in there somewhere.

But now this author's note is getting a bit long. Let's just end it here. Remember, if you have any thoughts on this (_loooong_) chapter, your reviews are always appreciated.


	26. The Princess and the Monkey

**INSOMNIA**_**  
**_**based on**_** The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

The strange, dream world experience left Link feeling light-headed. It took him nearly half a minute to adjust to the reality of being back here in this room.

"'Call us'..." muttered Tatl, repeating the dream-giant's last words to them. "Us..."

"What was that thing?" said Link. He winced as he said this; his lungs were aching after the encounter with Odolwa.

Tatl shrugged helplessly. "A... a giant?"

"Have you heard of anything that big?" Link's mind was boggling. That creature had been enormous. He had seen many things, but nothing remotely that big. It could easily have been the size of the Clock Tower itself, if not a hundred times more...

"Well, yeah," said Tatl. "Giants. There are all sorts of stories."

"What kind of stories?" said Link.

"Oh, you know, this and that," said Tatl. "But they're bedtime stories! Lies to entertain kids with. You know, 'Where did Termina come from?' 'Oh, the four protector giants made the four lands.' 'Can I have another cookie?' 'No, the four giants will eat you if you do.' That sort of stuff."

Link nodded, getting the picture. He remembered enough fantastical fables from his childhood to know that there was little chance of learning anything from that.

"That's it," said Tatl suddenly.

"What?" said Link.

"The four giants. That's what Tael was-"

She stopped short. A noise was coming from across the room: the grinding of stone on stone.

Link spun around immediately, searching for the source of the noise. The room appeared empty. The torches around its perimeter burned uninterrupted. The floor was littered with the occasional dead bug, and a faint layer of ash marked the spot where Odolwa had fallen.

The same scraping noise again.

"Did you hear that?" whispered Tatl.

Link nodded and walked across the room, guided by his ears.

As he drew near the section of wall furthest from the room's entrance, he saw it. An entire section of stone bricks, about Link's height and width, was moving independently of the rest of the wall, slowly pushing towards them like a loose jigsaw piece. It stopped and started, and Link thought he could hear heavy breathing coming from behind the wall.

"Is someone there?" he called, keeping a cautious distance.

The movement stopped. There was a pause of a few seconds. Then a voice spoke back.

"I don't need your help!"

The voice was high-pitched and haughty. Link and Tatl exchanged glances, both of them apparently having jumped to the same conclusion.

"You're the missing Deku princess, aren't you?" said Tatl.

"What's it to you?" the voice sniffed.

Another heave and the entire slab of stone swung out from the wall, moving on some concealed hinge. The gap was just wide enough for a Deku scrub's head to squeeze through. The area around her dull yellow eyes was smeared with mud-like makeup. A long leafy ponytail hung from her head, decorated with golden jewellery and delicate lavender petals, while a pair of dried berries were hooked to the sides of her head in a crude facsimile of earrings. Compared to the rough and dirty appearances of most scrubs, there was no mistaking her for anything but royalty.

Link stepped forward. "I'm Link, and this is Tatl. We're here to help."

The princess looked between them expressionlessly. "Well, you're a few days late for that, aren't you?"

"Uh..." Link glanced at Tatl, got nothing but an amused smirk, and glanced back to the Deku. "Well, we're... here now... We're here to rescue you."

The Deku snorted. "What, I should just trust you, mister human-who-can-turn-into-a-Deku-scrub? A Deku scrub, by the way, who looks _exactly_ like our butler's-"

"You saw all that?" said Link.

She laughed and squeezed out through the opening, revealing an extravagantly oversized feather dress. "I've been imprisoned here for days, human. Plenty of time to find peepholes."

Tatl was flying around the gap, inspecting it. "It's just a door. Couldn't you have, you know, walked out?"

"The monster..."

"Ah." Tatl glanced through the opening. "Hmm. Cramped."

The Deku princess looked Link up and down. Her eyes narrowed as she caught sight of the weapons hanging from his back.

"So, human," she said, "who exactly are you? How did you turn into a Deku scrub like that? And where did you get that bow?"

Link started again. "I'm Link, and this is Tatl. Turning into a Deku... um..."

"It's a long story," offered Tatl.

"It's a long story," Link affirmed. "I found the bow in this temple."

The princess smirked. "Thought so. You might want to keep that to yourself. Some of my fellow scrubs wouldn't react too kindly... But anyway. Thank you for rescuing me from the monster." She shuddered. "What a cliché. I can't believe I just said that."

"You're welcome," said Link.

Tatl rolled her eyes. "Enough with the formalities."

The princess looked up sharply, her earrings jangling with the movement. "I must say I've never met a faerie before. A pleasure to make your acquaintance... Tatl, yes? How do you do." She curtsied. "I am the Princess and the First and Sole Heir to the Crown of the Deku Tribe of the Swamplands of Termina. You may call me 'Princess' or 'your Highness'."

"I just said..." began Tatl.

Link cut her off. "Your Highness, if you don't mind we should try heading back to the palace. Your father is worried about you."

"Ooh, yes," murmured the princess, frowning. "Of course. How did you know I was here, by the way? You don't look like the sort of people my father would send."

"The monkey that came here with you," said Link. "It told us..."

The Deku princess exhaled slowly through her snout. "So the monkey made it back fine after all. That's a relief."

_Fine? _The last Link had seen of the monkey, the Deku king had been about to burn him at the stake. That had been the previous morning.

He exhaled slowly. "Princess, the monkey..."

The princess continued, oblivious: "I was worried that when I didn't come home, my father would overreact and decide the monkey had kidnapped me. For a while there I was almost worried he would go so far as to punish the poor thing, ha!"

She looked back and forth between Link and Tatl. The silence lasted just long enough to become uncomfortable.

Tatl grimaced. "So, the thing is..."

"You have _got _to be kidding me," said the princess. "My father wouldn't have... he... don't tell me he's gone and started a _fire_."

"...yeah, actually," said Tatl.

The princess trembled angrily. "Yet another hasty decision, father! Haven't you learnt _anything_?" She turned to Link and Tatl, eyes narrowed. "We should go. There still might be time to save it."

They set off back the way they had come, moving as fast as they could. Without Odolwa's drumming in the background, the temple was strangely silent; their footsteps were the only noise to be heard.

Their passage through the temple was swift. With the temple's tricks and traps fresh in his mind, Link navigated its various obstacles confidently and quickly. Tatl led the way just a few feet ahead. The Deku princess was no slouch either; she hopped across broken staircases and pirouetted down narrow corridors with single-minded vigour.

Throughout all this, they didn't encounter another living thing. The temple's monsters, so pervasive just an hour earlier, seemed to have vanished.

They passed through waterlogged main room and the darkened, damp antechamber and moments later they were running down the corridor that led from inside to out.

Link stepped out through the temple opening and his jaw dropped.

"Wow," he said, lost for words. He stared out into the swamp.

A few minutes earlier, at the same moment as Link was inside the temple destroying Odolwa's remains, the swamp had undergone a sudden change. One moment, everything reeked of toxic water. The next, the smell had disappeared and it was just the thick must of flowers and old growth vines. The purple muck that had polluted the water for weeks evaporated from its surface, turning into mist and then fading away like a bad dream. The water level had risen, too – that, or the temple was sinking. They were only a few feet above its surface now.

All the way down from the volcano, through waterfalls and stagnant inlets, the same was happening. At the same time, the fauna was mysteriously returning, frogs and insects and small furry things emerging from logs and crevices as if they'd been hiding there all along. Soon the swamp was teeming with life again.

Tatl misread Link's reaction. "Don't worry, it's supposed to look like that," she said. "Looks like killing the monster-"

"No time to dawdle!" snapped the princess.

Tatl glared. "Well, _excuse me_, p-"

Before the faerie could complete her sentence, the Deku princess shoved past her and Link, and began hopping across the water towards the nearest log.

"I just hope that monkey is still okay..." she muttered.

**-oOo-**

**Deku Palace  
The Southern Swamp**

The trees near the palace entrance had their roots beneath the swamp's water – with the poisonous muck gone, they were beginning to recover. Already the faintest buds of autumn red and gold were visible amongst the greying branches.

Link, Tatl and the Deku princess dashed across the 'bridge' that spanned the moat, barely giving the shaky wooden planks a second thought. The water didn't seem that dangerous now that the curse had lifted. They had more important worries.

"Fire," muttered the Deku princess, her eyes on the plume of grey smoke rising high above the palace walls. "_Fire_. I don't believe him. Who does he think he is?"

As they reached the palace entranceway, the red-leaved scrubs standing guard stared suspiciously at them.

"Halt!" the guards cried.

"Out of the way!" snapped the princess.

The guards turned their heads, seeming to notice her for the first time. The guard on the left jumped and nearly fell backwards; the other stood rooted to the spot, eyes widening.

"...Princess?" the latter stuttered. "You... you're alive..."

"Out of the way, _guards_," repeated the Deku princess in a voice to freeze lava. "These two are with me."

The guards hastily scrambled out of the way as the princess marched right between them, with Link and Tatl following close behind. As he passed the guards Link caught one's eye just long enough to see an expression of mixed revulsion and bewilderment.

They sprinted down the main hallway – empty – and passed through the archway into the throne room, where the crowd of Deku scrubs had grown even denser since the last time Link and Tatl had been here. Link glanced up and saw the monkey, tied to a pole in the centre of the fire. It was struggling violently against its bonds as the flames licked at its feet.

A few heads turned at the noisy entry, and dozens of pairs of eyes honed in immediately on him. The "pun-ish-ment" chant died, soon replaced by shocked murmurs of "human!".

The closest guards caught sight of Link and started towards him, spears at the ready.

"Don't touch them!" shouted the princess, emerging from behind Link. "They're with me!"

At this, the myriad pairs of eyes leapt from the strangely-clothed human to the Deku princess. Whispers rippled through the crowd.

"The princess...?"

"She's alive..."

"Move! Move! Out of the way!" she snapped, waving them back.

With a dark, purposeful expression on her face, she strode through the crowd, which parted in her wake.

"My little honey-mumpkins!" gasped the king, rising from his throne. "You're alive..." With an overjoyed expression on his face, he opened his arms to embrace his daughter.

The princess bounded up the steps and spear tackled the king to the ground. The closest guards gulped and moved back.

"Foolish father!" yelled the princess, rolling back the sleeves of her dress and standing up. "I go missing and your first thought is to burn things? You stupid old weed!" She was hopping up and down with rage. "Get that monkey down this instant!"

Giving the princess a wide berth, a wary guard circled around to where Link and Tatl stood, with his spear pointed at them. (Link could see the spearhead well enough to know that the shaft would easily break before the weapon pierced his skin.) "Humans are not allowed..." he began.

"Oh, no you don't!" snapped the princess, wheeling around. The guard immediately backed off, stepping back to huddle with the other guards. "While you were all busy playing the blame game, these two helped me escape. Solidarity! Comradeship! That human and that faerie are more Deku scrub than the lot of you combined!"

The king shifted uncomfortably. "But mumpkins, outsiders-"

"_Shush_."

"I... yes, mumpkins."

Tatl hovered close to Link's ear and whispered: "I think I like this scrub."

"Get that out!" shouted the princess, pointing to the fire.

Immediately the rest of the Deku scrubs in the room began scraping around the floor and tossing dirt onto the fire. High up on the pole, the captive monkey slumped, looking exhausted.

The princess surveyed the scene passively.

"Butler!" she said, addressing a tall, lean scrub standing off to one side. "Alert the kitchens. We are going to have a feast for our guests." Her eyes narrowed to slits. "And we are going to _enjoy _it."

**-oOo-**

The Deku scrubs were initially uncomfortable with Link, Tatl and the monkey walking freely in their presence, but most of them adjusted fairly quickly. They all migrated to the palace banquet hall, a huge hexagonal room filled with stones that acted as tables and chairs. Within an hour, steaming dishes of vegetable matter were being carted into the hall. Suddenly ravenous, Link was happy to sample anything that looked edible.

Afterwards, he looked for the monkey, but it was already surrounded by throngs of its brethren, who even now were slowly trickling in from over the walls, lured by free food and the promise of less-than-hostility. The younger Deku scrubs in the hall seemed delighted by the furry creatures, and within minutes games of tag were zipping through the room.

Not wanting to impose upon the scrubs' hospitality, Link and Tatl bid a quick farewell to the princess.

("So soon?" she said. "Well, if that's how it must be. Travel safe. You'll always be welcome here." She shot a glare at her father. "I'll make sure of that.")

They left the palace as the afternoon shadows were growing long. They curved their way around the swamp, slipped past the woods and the witches' shop, and began down the path lined with dead oaks, the one that led back to Termina field.

Link stayed silent as they made the walk back. His thoughts were all over the place, but they all seemed to come back to what had just happened in the Deku palace. The princess certainly cast an imposing shadow, but still the Deku people's sudden openness was more dramatic than he could understand.

On the horizon he spotted movement. A tree just a hundred yards away, half-silhouetted in the setting sun, had flickered slightly. There were a few birds perched on the highest branch.

Link half-smiled, remembering the encounter a few days ago. _Here we go again_, he thought, mentally preparing himself for another sprint after a day of running and jumping.

In the corner of his eye, he saw Tatl stiffen, and he felt a twinge of... something, something unusual. His thoughts had turned back to the temple, to the pitch black room and to Odolwa's final moments. Goddesses knew, she could be annoying at times, but Tatl had helped him then, when she hadn't had to and when it had really mattered. He could do a lot worse for a companion, even for a faerie one.

And he remembered that distant first half of his life, ten years of laughter and sun and teasing and never-quite-belonging. He remembered Navi, and those early weeks when she had still seemed more miracle than person. He remembered that first rainy night by the Castle Town gates when he realised that he truly had a friend. He remembered coming back from a war, turning his head and seeing her leave, a beacon of blue light disappearing through a faraway window. He remembered faces from a future that had never happened, allies and turncoats who had forgotten him when it had all ended, memories that would never have any truth to anyone but him. He remembered Zelda saying _you will always have friends back here_ and trying his hardest to believe it.

They kept moving in silence, drawing closer to the tree, and Tatl shifted nervously, as if she wanted to say something but at the same time didn't want to disturb him.

His feet plodded across rain-fresh dirt. In the distance there were crickets chirping. And a strange thought occurred to Link: he still had a few arrows left in his quiver.

**CYCLE 1: PARANOIA  
NIGHT of the THIRD DAY**


	27. Interlude: We All Die Together

**The FINAL SIX HOURS**  
an interlude  
**based on _The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask_**

**The Magic Hags' potion shop, night**

Outside, the world was ending. Inside, Koume and Kotake were wearing the same black shawls they always wore, drinking the same herbal tea they always drank, enjoying the silence they always did.

They sat together at the one table in the back room, positioned between the two beds and underneath the one lantern. They sipped slowly from their mugs of tea, reflecting on the falling moon. (Suffice to say: the blond boy had been right.)

The shop didn't have windows, and rightly so. After so many years in the swamp, it really was nothing but trees. They had no need to look outside.

They had no need to speak either. Though to their many customers and visitors the potion witches appeared murderously chatty, when they were alone they never talked. For all their decades, centuries even, they knew each other far too well to waste effort on words. Gestures, facial expressions, were more than enough.

Instead, as they sat and drank, one could see:

A gnawing of the lips.

Trepidation, excitement.

A thoughtful frown.

New experiences, anticipation.

A slow intertwining of the fingers.

Thinking of the heavens.

A folding of one hand over the other.

And of gravity.

A subtle adjustment of the cloak.

Strange how these things happen.

A reach for the closest tea mug.

Wistfulness.

A raised eyebrow.

Searching for irony.  
None to find.

A twist of the lips.

Reminiscence, a night of rotten  
barley and linseed many winters ago.

A small smirk.

Reminiscence shared.

A single long fingernail  
dragged across the table.

The passage of time.

A drawn-out breath.

Fleeting dreams of youth.

A swirl of the mug, a cloud  
of shredded tea leaves  
dancing around in the water.

All things pass.

A stately sip  
from the brim of the mug.

All things linger.

A serene stare into the distance.

Pass.

A mischievous smile.

Linger.

And so on.

After some time, Koume set her mug down, and met her sister's eyes.

"Do you know what I'm thinking, Kotake?" she said, her voice barely a whisper in the silent shop.

"What are you thinking, Koume?"

"Mortality is a strange thing, it is."

Kotake nodded thoughtfully. "Another of life's many mysteries, hmm?"

The witches smiled to themselves, sharing in a joke that neither of them understood individually but which, together, made perfect sense.

**-oOo-**

**After the Light**

The torches were dying. Barely more than embers, they did nothing to hold night's blanket back.

They all sat in the palace courtyards, talking serenely amongst themselves. It had been a long day.

It had been strange to see the palace gates flung open and all manner of creatures invited into the closed world of the Deku. Many of them had been brought up fearing the shadowy beings that hid in the trees beyond their walls, and to discover that these creatures were benign on the whole was... strange. (In fact, quite a few young scrublings voiced disappointment at the lack of 'baddies' among the mix.) Stranger still were the human and the faerie wandering freely through the crowd – heroes or not, what if they tried to steal the tribe's secrets? Some scrubs were worried, very worried.

Still, if there was one thing more ingrained into the Deku spirit than this xenophobia, it was subservience to authority. The princess's edict to compassion was a royal order, no less, and nobody who had seen the princess striding into the throne room had any doubts that she was serious. There had been fire in her gaze. The Deku respected fire.

The monkeys had brought with them a strange tangled kind of herb that the Deku scrubs had never seen before, one that turned from bitter to sweet as it lingered in the mouth. Perplexed but enchanted by its taste, the kitchen servants mixed the strange plant into salads with nuts and berries, and the dish won everyone's approval.

The herb seemed to have magical properties, too – each swallow seemed to evoke the moment the princess had walked back into the palace, washing away stress, alleviating a burden they hadn't realised they were carrying. When they started being able to understand the monkeys' words, nobody batted an eyelid.

Within an hour, all spirits were high, and the court musicians trumpeted jubilant tunes that hadn't been heard by living ears for decades. They all danced, Deku scrubs and monkeys and whoever else wandered in through the gates. They danced and they talked and they talked. The youngest scrubs, especially: no amount of innate distrust could quench their curiosity about how the other half lived.

The torches were dying. They all sat close together in the palace courtyards, scrubs and monkeys alike and other animals as well. A few brightly coloured birds sat atop the walls, drawn by the warmth of the food and the torches. Almost invisible in the darkness, a jungle cat lay before the Deku princess, who was trying to coax it into eating berries from her hand. A few scrubs and monkeys sat in a loose semicircle around the king.

The king was regaling the small audience with tales of brave Deku scrubs past:

"...Blackhollow Woods is no place for the weak of heart. There are night birds whose talons blind unwary travellers, and poisonous darkmites who feast on the trees themselves. But Troubark wasn't afraid. Holding nothing but that spear, he walked straight through..."

One of the Deku scrubs shifted uncomfortably, and rolled onto his side for a better position. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of red from overhead.

He turned his eyes skyward. The moon drifted silently downwards, a dark circle framed against the starry sky.

Perhaps it was just his imagination, but its glowing eyes seemed full of malice, far scarier than any monster in a make-believe tale.

"So close..." he breathed.

"It isn't heading for us," said the king, overhearing him. His voice was soft and even, half asleep. He seemed to have lost interest in his own story. "It will land in the town to the north. It is a human concern."

On any other night the other scrub might have shrunk in fear at being directly addressed by the royalty. Instead, with the bitter herb still warming him to his roots, he frowned thoughtfully.

"But what if they die?" he wondered.

The king shook his head. "It is a human concern."

A voice cut in:

"You're wrong."

The princess had given up on the cat by her feet and was now fixing her father with an annoyed look.

"Human concern, Deku concern, those words don't mean anything. It's a concern or... either something is important, or it isn't."

For a moment the king seemed irritated at being argued with. Then the warm air of the night washed over him and he calmed.

"And what do you think, my little jewel?" he asked his daughter. "Is it important?"

The princess. "I don't think so. Things in the sky are so much further away than they look. The moon can't fall on us any more than we can reach out and touch it." She toyed with her headdress, pulling a leaf out and vanishing it into the grass with a flick of her wrists. "Besides, do you really think one rock is enough to end the world?"

_Is it such a strange thought?_, said one of the monkeys, the magic of the tangled-root herbs rendering his low guttural noises perfectly intelligible.

Another, younger one, piped in: _Rocks hurt._

A few of the Dekus laughed at this, though their children nearby exchanged baffled looks – wasn't it true?

"Let me tell you a story," said the princess to nobody in particular. She sat up and shifted towards her father. "It's rare I see so many people in one place, especially when half of you aren't Deku. Strange isn't it? The monster died, the water cleared, and suddenly everyone is best of friends. As if all these generations of hunting and burning never happened."

The scrubs around her exchanged uncomfortable looks; some of them muttered quietly to themselves and moved off to find a different, more savoury conversation.

"But my story. When I and that monkey – the poor thing, I don't see him around, he deserves far more than what he got – when we went to the temple and the monster took me, I was alone in there by myself for days. I had plenty of time to think to myself. I couldn't leave, not with it there, waiting... I think it was playing with me. That's not the right word. Too happy."

_Did it hurt you?_, asked one monkey.

"Not as such," said the princess.

She didn't elaborate.

"What was the monster like?" asked one scrub.

"Tall. Taller than you can imagine. And with a sword and shield and war stripes and masks, like one of those old gods our ancestors worshipped. For a while I wondered if it was karma, a monster like that appearing to punish us for our xenophobia and all the things we did in the name of the old ways...

"And that's what I was going to say. All this bickering, all the suspicion and the closed walls, it always seemed wrong to me but I could never find the words. I mean, we're not that different in the end, not things like decency and respect. But alone in that monster's lair – and you can't imagine what it's like to be alone, really alone, thinking this is all you'll ever know – when I was there it started to make sense to me. Those guards at the palace gates, those pointy fences, they don't protect us from anything, really. That's what the falling moon is really about. It's a message from the gods..."

_No_, murmured one of the larger monkeys. _Not from the gods. From the Four who are there._

She waved a hand dismissively. "From the guardian giants... but still, it's a message. And it's something all Deku kind need to hear. It's – we could all be gone any minute, so there's no point hiding from the world. Enemies or friends, we all die together. Maybe not all at once, but... together. You know?"

What followed was silence, and in the darkness it was hard to tell who was nodding in agreement and who was glaring daggers. The princess saw the scrubs and monkeys closest to her, and the younglings were looking at her in awe while their parents or elders beside them frowned with jaded wariness.

Nobody spoke for a while. Overhead, a bird standing on one of the walls spread its wing and took flight. The food it had come for had long since vanished.

"Muffle-wumpkins?" said the king, turning his whole body to face his daughter.

"What, father?" said the princess, stiffening at his gaze.

"I..." The monarch's mouth worked open and closed a few times. "I'm... I'm pr..."

He paused, seeming to remember the people all around them, and leant in close to whisper something. The princess gave him a startled look, blushed, then quickly turned her head away to hide her smile.

**-oOo-**

**Questions**

See the child who looks like a man. Some call him mad, for what child is tall and speaks in such a deep voice? Who but a mad man would dress in green and hide in parks and woods? Who but a mad man would tell tales of elves and fae, and hope with all his heart that he would in fact turn out to be one of them? What sane man or child shouts such strange calls to the empty night? "Tingletinglekooloolimpah!" Those are not the calls of a sane one, they say. This man is not right in the head.

Some call him mad. But he knows what they do not. It is the heart, not the skin, that makes us who we are. He is a child. Why? As he knows so in his heart, no more, no less.

See the trees. The trees are tall. They twist to and fro like snakes made of wood. Things lurk in the trees that might hurt boys and girls who draw too near. No child must go near the dark. It is not safe in the dark. All must stay in the light.

See the moon. It is oh so high. The moon was once big and bright, it was a light that would smile on us all at night. But now the moon does not have a smile. Now the moon has a frown.

Why does the moon frown?

Things frown when they are sad. But what things could make a moon sad?

Cuts and stubbed toes make the child sad. Is this what makes the moon sad?

Lost toys and a dead Ma make the child sad. Is this what makes the moon sad?

To have no friends makes the child sad. Is this what makes the moon sad?

Can a moon have friends?

If the child makes friends with the moon, will it no longer be sad?

Hear the child ask this to Pa. See Pa pause and rub his chin, his eyes fixed on a sad, sad thought that the child is far too young to see.

See a lone tear crawl down the man's cheek. See how Pa turns his head to hide it and so stay a man.

"The moon will fall," says Pa. "That's that."

But the moon would hurt us if it should fall, thinks the child.

Why should the moon want to hurt us? Why should the moon fall?

If the moon should fall, it would be sad for all.

None would play.

None would smile.

None would laugh.

None would be free.

It is right to be free. It is wrong to be dead. Who will the moon make dead when it falls? Will it be one 'who' or two 'who's or all the 'who's in the world? Why should the moon want to make dead when it could make smile?

The moon does not smile. Who took its smile? Who has made it mad, so mad that it would make us all dead?

Now it draws close. It will still draw close, more and more close. Soon it will be so close that we will feel the red burn of its eyes. Soon it will be so close that we will feel the jag-and-crag rocks of its face. They will be sharp and they will cut at our skin. It will hurt.

Then, when the moon draws more close than that, it shall rest on top of us. It will not be light, and so it will push us to the ground and make us flat. The moon will lie on top of us so that it can rest. Even it needs sleep, and we who dwell on earth are as soft as a bed can be. It is when it lies on us that we shall die, for the moon is not light and we shall break from its weight.

When the moon lays down to rest, and the world is as flat as a leaf and all are dead from its weight, then it shall close its eyes. The moon shall close its eyes and dream of clouds and stars and all those things that are too high for us to reach. The moon will dream of clouds and stars because it knows them oh so well. They are all it has for friends.

It must dream all this for us, since we are gone.

It must close its eyes, and wish for a world in which moons need no sleep and are not sad, and boys and girls need no wealth and are not bad.

It must close its eyes, and dream this dream for a world that long since broke.

It must close its eyes, and dream.

It must close its eyes, and dream, and smile.

Then all shall be well.

**-oOo-**

**Deku Palace Interior (reprise)**

In another courtyard of the palace, far from where the princess was talking, the Deku butler sat on a small rock shadowed by the statues of lonely kings and queens past. A pair of monkeys, one small and nearly furless, one large and silver, had broken away from the centre and now wandered towards him.

The butler must have heard them coming, for he turned his head in their direction, but his eyes were far away. Both monkeys came to a stop a few feet away from the lanky scrub.

_Why do you sit alone?_, the smaller monkey asked. It stood unsteadily on its tiptoes, teetering back and forth between curiosity and politeness.

"Because I want to," said the butler, speaking not rudely but frankly.

_Why do you want to?_, said the smaller monkey.

The larger one stepped in closer, sniffing at the butler. _Nobody wants to be alone_, it said dubiously.

The Deku butler looked down and met the monkey's stare. "I..." He paused, his hands clutching at air for the right words. "I already am alone."

_You speak in riddles_, said the larger monkey, moving past its smaller companion. Its searching expression was at odds with its pinkish face. _What kind of aloneness do you mean?_

The butler shrugged. "These past few days have been tiring. My king's every request. There were so many, he was so scared when she disappeared. He really cares for her, no matter what she may believe." He sighed wistfully. "But it has been tiring for me. Everything has been so very tiring these past few... since he... and that human boy, the one the princess brought back... all the things on his belt, I thought I saw..."

He trailed off, staring into the distance again.

_Saw what?_, said the smaller of the monkeys.

A few seconds passed in silence. The monkeys exchanged glances – perhaps the Deku hadn't heard them? Wasn't the bitterroot's power enough? – and the larger one turned its head as if to repeat the question.

Without warning, the Deku butler leant back and let out a hoarse laugh. Startled, the monkeys hopped back.

_What is the joke?_, asked the larger monkey.

"Oh, nothing," said the butler. "Just... nothing." He laughed again, more quietly this time. It sounded ragged, like a sob coming out the wrong way.

The smaller monkey seemed utterly perplexed by the scrub's behaviour. The larger monkey frowned and, quietly, made its way to the butler's feet. It stared up, regarding the peeling bark of the Deku's face with a thoughtful expression on its own.

_You seem upset_, the monkey said at length.

"I'm not upset," said the butler. "I'm just... well, the past is the past, isn't it?"

The larger monkey met his eyes and then looked down solemnly.

Thinking it recognised where the conversation had moved, the smaller monkey piped up and nodded enthusiastically. _Yes!_, it squeaked. _It is like the flowery-crown-Deku says. We must forget past fears and aloneness and be as one._

The larger monkey shook its head. _Hush, brother. This man is not talking about..._

"No," said the butler. "It's okay."

_We must all become friends_, continued the smaller monkey obliviously. _That is the way to happiness and peace._

"Peace," echoed the butler. "We could all use some peace."

He leant back to stare at the sky, but his eyes never made it there. The palace's walls stretched up for a few hundred feet and ended, roofless. The throne of the Deku tribe was not truly cut off from the outside world: strength and conviction were all it would really take to scale its barriers. There was something very disturbing about that thought, disturbing yet not entirely unpleasant.

_The water is safe to drink again_, said the large monkey, interrupting his thoughts. _It is a good omen. A time of harmony is coming. It shall come as surely as the sun shall rise tomorrow._

"Things like that don't just happen."

The monkey nodded thoughtfully. After a pause it said: _Some things happen slowly, like the passing of the seasons. Perhaps harmony is such a thing._

The butler thought. With enough time, with enough patience...? The princess's return seemed to have enchanted the tribe with a magic of its own. When the morning came, would the magic fade? That was the question. Still, he felt something stirring in his breast, something he had thought he would never feel since the night his son had disappeared. Hope? No. But something close enough.

"It won't be easy," he said.

_Still_, observed the small one. _It will happen._

* * *

**A/N:** Insert exactly what I said about the last interlude - secondary characters are nearly blank slates half the time and this makes them a lot of fun to write about. Because, like, there are no rules. THERE ARE NO RULES!

Ahem.

I'll try to get the last installment of this cycle out as quickly as possible (but no guarantees, this semester has turned out pretty hectic for me). Thanks as always for your readership and your reviews.


	28. Feather

**INSOMNIA  
based on _The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask_**

They trudged slowly down the path towards Termina field, with the swamp and the distant ringing of crickets at their back and an orb of lifeless rock suspended overhead.

"I can't believe you did that," said Tatl, toying with the thing in her hands.

"Did what?" said Link, looking away.

The faerie gave the tiniest shrug. "You know what I mean."

She held in her hands a feather, thin and streamlined and nearly taller than her. In the night darkness it might have been any colour at all. The bird she had plucked it from was still lying motionless on the path some ten, twenty minutes behind them.

It had been so easy. A few birds, perched on a tree. He'd been thinking about something, had seen something in Tatl's face, and then the impulse had taken him, and his hands moved by themselves. Yes, his hands had moved by themselves; those birds could have been vultures or Ganon's minions or concentric red rings on a wooden board. So easy. Four thirty, four thirty-one, four thirty-two.

After a pause, Link spoke uncertainly. "I thought you wanted..."

"I..." Tatl dropped her eyes. "Well, yes."

"So..." Link glanced at her.

"So since when did you care what I want?" She shrugged. "I just thought... You seemed better than that. Better than me."

The worst of it was that a tiny part of him, the part of his brain that danced sword and bow through the air, seemed to think, _So what? They were just birds. _And the voice of the dead Kokiri boy, who was supposed to appear and say _You weren't supposed to do that_, remained absent.

"You helped," said Link after a pause. "At Woodfall Temple. There was that room with the blackboes and you helped me out. And with the big monster... I thought you were going to run. And maybe.. I mean, you're the rudest faerie I've ever met, but maybe I was... well..."

Tatl looked him up and down with genuine curiosity. "So what," she said, "this is a peace offering or something?"

"Well... you kept going on about..."

"I'll take that as a yes." She shrugged. "I guess I should be flattered."

The ensuing pause lasted just a moment too long for comfort.

"Come on," said Tatl, turning with a sudden movement. "Let's keep going. There's something further down I want to show you."

**-oOo-**

They stopped at the very edge of the swamp, where the trees ended and Termina field began.

"Here," said Tatl, leading him to the side.

There was a rough drawing carved at the roots of a tree, which looked like a hatted stick figure surrounded by flies. Link vaguely remembered having noticed it before. He stepped in to get a closer look.

"What does that look like to you?" said Tatl.

Link peered at it. Up close, it still looked the same. "Insects of some sort? The figure in the middle and..." He trailed off, realising the obvious. "They're faeries."

Tatl nodded. "That's right."

"Two faeries and... the Skull Kid?"

"Yeah. Tael and I drew this with the Skull Kid when we first met him..."

She turned and stared into space pointedly. After a few moments of silence, Link realised that she was waiting for him to take the bait.

"How did it happen?" he asked. "How did you and Tael meet the Skull Kid?"

Tatl stroked the feather with a dramatic sigh. "If you must know."

She made a show of stretching her neck from side to side.

Link shifted his weight to one foot. "So..."

"It was raining," Tatl said. "There's a big hollowed-out log not far from here. Me and Tael went in there because it was dry. The Skull Kid was hiding in there. He was hiding really well, too; we wouldn't have noticed him if he hadn't been crying. So we went down to talk to him. Turns out he was pretty lonely. Bit of an outsider." She glanced at Link. "Maybe you can relate...?"

"Go on," said Link tersely.

"We got along real well. The Skull Kid wasn't like most people, he knew how to have fun.

And having someone bigger around really helped with some of the pranks Tael and I wanted to pull. And, well..." She smirked. "The Skull Kid looks like a scarecrow. We weren't complaining.

"But you were asking how we met, so... yeah. That's pretty much all there was to it. Well... That first night, when we went down to talk to him, he told us that he had been fighting with his friends and that they had left him all alone." She shrugged. "Doesn't surprise me. He's a lot like me and Tael; he's got a sense of humour. Most people don't get that. So I can see why he didn't get along with most people."

Her face grew dark.

"But to do what he did just because of that..."

_The second blow struck home and the man crumpled. He landed face first, his arms bouncing uselessly off the ground. There he lay still._

_The Skull Kid was immediately at the man's side, unfastening his victim's rucksack and rolling it away from the body. He rubbed his hands together excitedly and began to rummage through its contents._

_Tael hovered by the salesman's head, staring with worry at the thin bloody ellipse where the club had connected._

"_Are you sure he's alive?" he said._

"_Of course he's alive." Tatl rolled her eyes. "Skull Kid was gentle, isn't that right?"_

"_Course I was," replied the Skull Kid. He looked at the body uncertainly for a few seconds, then let out a breath. "See? He's still breathing." He shot Tael a smile. "I'm not _that_ strong, my faerie friend."_

_He returned his attention to the rucksack. Save a sleeping bag and a few dirty underclothes, the only thing he was pulling out of the large leather bag was masks, dozens upon dozens of them. Some resembled people or animals, others were adorned with ornate ceremonial designs that swirled back and forth, others still were stark and abstract like the gears of a clock. The Skull Kid paused with each one, holding it up for the faeries to look at before tossing it aside._

"_There's nothing here, Tatl," he muttered impatiently. "I told you this guy was a mask salesman."_

"_Yeah, but he was scrawny, wasn't he?" said Tatl. "Easy pickings."_

"_We're in huge trouble if he saw us," said Tael, flying up to join his sister. "_Huge_ trouble."_

"_We were careful, weren't we?" said Tatl, giving her brother an annoyed shove. "Don't be a crybaby."_

"_If this guy's a salesman where's all his money?" said the Skull Kid. "Don't people buy his masks?"_

_She flew closer to the mouth of the rucksack, peering inside. "Ew. Smells like rotten fruit." She wrinkled her nose. "Maybe nobody wants the masks?"_

"_Yeah," chimed Tael, "look at this one. It's just a piece of wood with holes for eyes."_

_The Skull Kid paused in his rummaging. "What's this?" he said._

_He pulled the object in question out and stepped away from the rucksack. It was the right size to be another mask, but was wrapped in black cloth._

"_Maybe it's special?" said Tael._

"_Maybe," said the Skull Kid._

_He started unwrapping the object, but didn't get far before he encountered resistance. Turning it over in his hands, he saw that the cloth had actually been sewn up, preventing it from being opened._

_The Skull Kid looked up at the faeries uncertainly._

_Tatl shrugged. "Rip it."_

"_Yeah," said Tael, "do it."_

_Clutching opposite ends of the wrapping in his hands, the Skull Kid gritted his teeth and pulled. He strained at it for a few seconds, and then with a sharp twanging sound the entire bundle came flying apart and something large and heavy fell to the ground, narrowly missing the Skull Kid's toes._

_For a few long seconds, the imp and the two faeries stared at the object without a word._

"_Now _that's _interesting," said the Skull Kid._

_It was a mask, but they could see at once that this mask was different to the others. Shaped like a deformed love heart, it exuded an ominous air. Its surface glinted strangely in the sunlight, not quite metallic but not quite anything else either. It had its own eyes: two bloodshot orbs with tiny black pupils which seemed to bore holes straight through the viewer. Beyond this there were no recognisably human features on the mask, just layers upon layers of thick black lines bordering deep earthen paints. Thick spikes of yellowing bone protruded dangerously from the mask's sides._

"_That has to be the creepiest mask I've ever seen," said Tatl._

"_I'll say," said the Skull Kid. He lifted it up. "Let's see how it fits me."_

_Gingerly, not wanting to break it, he carefully placed the mask onto his face. It fit snugly, and he removed his hands it seemed to sink a little further into his face._

"_Ooh," he said. "I like."_

_He turned to face them, and a slight shiver ran down Tatl's spine. The mask was even more unsettling once it was being worn. She pushed the feeling back – just a mask – and nodded appraisingly._

"_Nice fit," she said._

"_That mask is creepy," said Tael. He had an uncomfortable look on his face._

"_Yeah, isn't it?" said the Skull Kid happily. "This will be great for scaring people with. I'm keeping this one."_

"_How can you see without eyeholes?" said Tatl._

_The Skull Kid shrugged. "I don't know. Magic? Whatever it is, I like it. Everything looks so much more... colourful. Happier..."_

_She smirked. "Happy isn't a colour."_

"_Well, whatever." The Skull Kid cocked his head from side to side, sending the mask's eyes lolling back and forth eerily. "It's neat, whatever it is. I like it."_

"_Take it off, Skull Kid," said Tael, biting his lip. "That mask gives me a bad feeling."_

"_It's a _mask_, Tael," said his sister dryly. "The only harm it can do is scaring a little wimp like you to death."_

_Skull Kid laughed. "Aww, is Tael scared? Hee, hee." He hopped to his feet and took a few bounding steps towards the faeries._

_Tael flinched and drew back. "Please, Skull Kid. Take the mask off. I don't like it. Make him take it off, Sis."_

_Tatl groaned. "Wingshreds, Tael. Give it a rest."_

"_But..."_

"_It's okay," said the Skull Kid. He gripped the mask in both hands and pulled it off. He grinned, orange eyes twinkling. "See? All normal."_

"_Yeah," chimed Tatl, "it hasn't eaten his face or anything, has it?"_

"_Heh." Skull Kid spun the mask around in his hands. "You should listen to your sister, Tael. She has a lot more sense than you."_

_Tatl grinned. Tael still looked uneasy._

"_You're just spooked, Tael. You thought we killed the salesman and you got all superstitious. It's nothing to worry about." The Skull Kid raised the mask towards his face. "I mean, what about the 'haunted' house we did the other day? What about those Snapper eggs we stole, you remember? After everything we've been through together, is a _mask _really all that scary?"_

_The purple faerie looked down sheepishly. "I guess not..."_

"_That's right," said the Skull Kid. He shot Tatl a grin. "See? Problem fixed."_

"_Nice work," chirped Tatl. "We taking anything else?"_

_The Skull Kid glanced at the pile of discarded masks. "Nah," he said. "This one's cool, but no point making a collection."_

"_Okay. Let's get out of here, then."_

"_Yeah, before he wakes up," said Tael._

"_Sure thing," said the Skull Kid. With a cheeky smile, he stopped twirling the mask and slipped it back onto his head._

_Neither of the faeries had seen his face since._

"I told him not to do it," said Tatl earnestly. "Stealing from lazy shopkeepers is one thing, but _mugging _people... that was his idea. And Tael, well, he just went along with it. The Skull Kid was always a little more reckless than us. And once he got his power, once he put that mask on, well... he was never quite the same."

"The mask changed him?" said Link.

"It changed him," nodded Tatl. "He could be spiteful, sure, but ever since he discovered the mask gave him magic powers, some of the pranks became just vicious. He spent two whole days with a dog that had bitten him at last year's big festival... 'experimenting', he called it. And not long after that... well. He'd always wanted a horse. And then I lose, what, a few weeks?, in the Underforest trying to help you out, and the next thing I know he's trying to destroy the world. Didn't the Great Faerie say the Mask wants to destroy things? Well, Skull Kid never wanted that. He was like us, he liked messing with things, but whatever this is, whatever's been poisoning the swamp and dragging down the moon – that's not him. It's the Mask or something. It's not him."

Link regarded her carefully. "You're saying it's not his fault?"

She shrugged. "I saw how you handled the monster in the temple. That was... I mean, it was good, scary good, but... look, all I'm trying to say here is – go easy on Skull Kid, okay? He's not a bad person. Whatever we saw on top of the Clock Tower... that wasn't him."

Link frowned, unsure whether to believe her. She had been part of the ambush that had seen him robbed and cursed in the first place. But everything he'd seen of Tatl since then seemed to show she wasn't a bad person. For a while those thoughts simmered. Then he made up his mind: this wasn't a matter of life or death in any immediate sense. At least this once, he could afford to take a chance and ignore his danger instincts (or was that just another word for paranoia?).

"I understand," he said.

Tatl nodded, looking relieved. "Good..." she said, staring off into blank space.

Perhaps she was thinking of the Skull Kid again. Or perhaps her brother. Link kept forgetting about Tael... but of course the younger faerie would be weighing on her mind. She had lost a friend, too – perhaps she would understand.

_Navi was..._

He almost opened his mouth to say it, but couldn't quite complete the movement. Explaining Navi would mean explaining a lot of things, and he didn't think he could stand that. He had tried, Goddesses knew, with Zelda, and what had that achieved? No amount of explaining could make someone understand seven years of erased history.

Instead, he searched for something to say, and-

"Friends?" he said aloud.

The question caught him off-guard. He didn't remember forming the words in his mind, they had just appeared there on their own accord.

Tatl quickly looked away, but not before he caught the ghost of a smile on her face.

"You're a weird one, Deku boy," she said. "It doesn't work like that, you know."

"What doesn't work like that?"

Tatl laughed; Link reddened. "Never mind," she said. "I forgot you're only eight..."

"Ten..."

"...you have plenty of time to grow up." She laughed again and shook her head. "Come on. We have work to do." She pointed at his belt. "Get out your, uh..."

"Ocarina?"

"Yeah, that. Not much we can do in the next few hours."

True. Link took his ocarina from his belt. It was cool in his hands as he turned it over and felt for the finger holes. He raised the reed to his lips and paused.

"What do we do next?" he said.

"Isn't it obvious?" said Tatl. "We head north."

"North? What's to the north?"

She waved him off irritably. "Ask me afterwards. Come on, do your time travel thing already. I don't want to be around that..." - she nudged her head towards the moon, which filled half the sky - "...any longer than I have to."

Link shuddered. Somehow he'd managed to avoid thinking about the moon all night. Now that he remembered it was there he could almost feel it pressing down on the air above them. Some things were just unnatural.

"All right," he said. He closed his eyes for a moment. Then he took a deep breath and began to play.

The Song of Time was a mournful melody, uncomplicated and unpretentious. His hands moved through the piece with easy familiarity. Soon enough the last note had faded to silence.

"I hope this works again," said Tatl darkly. "Because if-"

The world held for a moment.

Then there was a shimmering, a shimmering and all at once the ground and the trees and the night time sky were crumbling, crumbling to pieces and everything was white, white and there were the endless clocks ticking, ticking and Link was falling-

* * *

**A/N:** Yes? No? I had more but I cut out a lot of stuff I liked because it was getting a bit too much. :( Personally, I think that what we see of Link and Tatl in this chapter flows naturally from their portrayal in previous chapters (that is, it _doesn't_ look like everyone's personality suddenly changed), but then again I have this stuff running around in my head all the time so I might not be the best judge. What do you think?

Anyway - another cycle done! It's a little worrying because at my current rate it will take another three years to finish this fanfic, which is an absurd amount of time for any kind of amateur effort. We'll have to see if the next cycle comes out any faster... I'd call it a fifty-fifty.

A huge thanks to all my readers for sticking with me this far. Here's to more _Insomnia_ to come...

CYCLE 1: Paranoia (November 2008 - November 2009)


	29. CYCLE 2: Word Against Word

**INSOMNIA  
based on _The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask_**

Falling.

It could only have been for an instant: the ocarina was still warm in his hands and the grassy scent of the field was still fading away, yet his gut was telling him that he had been falling for hours, that this endless weightless descent through this nothingness had lasted for his entire life, longer even, a lifetime of lifetimes, an eternity of lifetimes, an eternity of eternities of lifetimes-

Falling.

-the clocks sped past him, the silhouettes of manyfold hands and gears hovering in the whiteness, and their unceasing tick-tock-tick-tock procession threatened to deafen him, tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock, his heart was beating in time, too, he was screaming, he heard his own voice screaming, he heard his own voice... talking?

Falling.

Tick-tock-tick-tock and he was sure he could hear his own voice, coming distantly from every directions. There were snatches of words... "Remember... said... before I left..." Why was he hearing his own voice? Was this a memory? Was his mind playing tricks on him? He twisted as he fell, searching for the source of the noise. "...travel through time... only play..." A flash of green. His reflection? His imagination?

A different voice was speaking, a young girl's. "The ocarina has power... true, but no power..." The voice was calm, reserved, strangely familiar. Where had he heard it before? Here? Home? "...every time you play that song..." There was something there, something dangling over the precipice between thought and flight, ready to fall either way. The voice was-

Falling.

The constant tick-tock-tick-tock of the clocks was drowning out the words, the voices were too fast, too slow, they were speaking outside of time itself, a different time. The meaning and the recognition slipped away from him, falling, spiralling, a hundred thousand million clocks ticking, ticking, ticking, wondering-

Falling.

A second later and he had forgotten even hearing the voices. He was simply there, falling, weightless, hurtling down though there was no such thing as 'down' here, the clocks ticking as one, always as one, he was falling, he had been falling for years and he was going to fall forever-

Standing.

Link stumbled forward. He dropped to a crouch and threw his arms out to his side, steadying himself. When he was sure he had readjusted to real-world gravity, he stood.

It was dark in here, and smelt of rust and algae. As Link's eyes adjusted he recognised some familiar sights – great slow-moving gears and pistons that spanned from floor to ceiling – and realised where they were. The ocarina had sent them back to the bottom of the Clock Tower, just like before.

"I didn't crash that time," said someone behind him. "That's an improvement."

Link turned around. Tatl was fluttering in small unsteady circles behind him.

She shot him a weak smile. "Not very pleasant, is it?"

"What," said Link, "the time travel?"

"Actually, I was talking about this place's interior design. But since you mentioned time travel, is it just me..." She flew towards him, overshot, ("Wingshreds, one sec...") made a second, slower attempt and landed cleanly on his shoulder. "Much better... Is it just me, or does that magic orakina falling thing go on forever?"

"I suppose so..." For a second, Link felt a vague twitch of unease. He had been thinking about something just then, hadn't he? While he had been falling through the whiteness, he had been thinking about something, or maybe noticed something...

"Something wrong?"

"I..." He struggled with the thought for a few more seconds before giving up. "Never mind. If it's important I'll remember."

Tatl shrugged. "If you say so, Deku boy."

"Link."

"Ah, my mistake. What say we step outside, Deku boy?"

Link shot her a look then started for the door. He pushed it open, ducked his head to shield his eyes from the sudden brightness, and stepped through.

Clock Town, morning. Even though he was expecting it, it still took Link by surprise how normal everything seemed. The town square was packed with morning shoppers and hyperactive children – the same shoppers, it occurred to him, the same children. He was sure their faces looked a little familiar from the last two times. In the distance the carpenters were erecting their festival tower. Further away a patrol of guards clanked past. All the same people going through all the same motions.

"Here we go again," said Tatl.

"Here we go again," echoed Link. He turned to look at her. "So. Where to next?"

"Where to...?" She blinked. "Oh, right, right. So like I said before, we need to go north."

"North," muttered Link. He took a few steps forward and turned, trying to get his bearings. "Behind the clock tower, through the park...?"

Tatl nodded, looking pleased. "Ah, you remember."

"I think I'm getting to know this town," said Link with a shrug. "What's to the north?"

"I'll explain as we go," said Tatl, motioning forward.

Link started to walk around the base of the clock tower. It was less crowded away from the centre of the town square; it was no trouble for him to sidestep the occasional hyperactive tot or scatter-brained adult.

"That giant," said Tatl, drifting lazily by his side. "The one we saw after you killed the big screechy monster. I was thinking about it after we left Woodfall, and I think I have it worked out."

"Yes?" said Link. A dog dashed past him, yipping madly. His eyes tracked it for a few seconds before returning to the path ahead.

"Yep. You asked me before about giants. In Termina there's a lot of stories about them, but most of them are complete crock, like, bedtime stories and all that. But they've all got a common thread. They're always about four giants, exactly four. And all the stories say that they once lived alongside people – I mean, a long time ago, billions of years, I bet – but now they're in hiding, guarding the world or something. It's a reassurance thing. People sleep better at night if they think they're being protected, you know?"

"So you think the stories are true?"

"Well, you know the saying. Every truth comes from a grain of story – every story's grain of truth has a – screw it–"

A woman appeared from behind a corner and cut straight through Link's path. He yelped and stopped just in time to avoid a collision, and turned to glare slightly at her as she walked past, apparently oblivious to his existence.

A second later it occurred to him that the woman looked a little familiar, though from where or when he couldn't say. Dark red hair, sombre maroon clothing, a bundle of dripping wet linen clutched underneath one arm...

"Have we seen that woman before?" he said aloud.

"Doesn't ring a bell," said Tatl.

Link frowned, the strangest sense of deja vu settling over him. "I'm sure we talked to her at some point..."

"You're thinking of the Romani Ranch woman. Same-ish hair, easy mistake. This one isn't covered in cow manure."

"No, not her," said Link. He thought about it for a few seconds. They had encountered plenty of people in Clock Town so far, so if he had remembered this woman's face there must have been a reason, something more important than just an accidental bumping in the street. He cast his mind back to his last visit here: the ranch woman, the guards at the gate, the Bombers, the blue-haired boy... "Do you mind if we follow her for a bit?" He turned and started walking in the direction the woman had gone.

"Yes," said Tatl, angling sharply to keep up. "Yes, I mind. We have better things to do than stalking strangers."

"It'll just be for a moment," said Link. "Keep talking."

"But..." The faerie sighed. "Okay. So since we both saw a giant with our own eyes, I figure they're probably real. I know, huge leap of logic, Tatl. And it was saying, what was it?... 'Call us'. _Us_, you see? It adds up. The four guardian giants, just like in the stories, waiting for Termina's time of need. And I think the whole end-of-the-world thing counts as a time of need, don't you?"

Link nodded. "Right."

The woman had made a sharp turn out of the town square and towards the eastern thoroughfare, where the pricier shops resided. As Link followed her around the bend he dropped his speed, not wanting to attract too much attention. Why was she familiar?

"And what I realised," Tatl went on, "was that Tael was trying to tell us about them. Remember what he said on the Clock Tower? Swamp, mountain, ocean, canyon, bring the four who are there here? 'The four who are there' are obviously the giants. I think he's telling us where they are."

"Uh-huh." Tall, female, angular face, dark red hair. Think.

"Of course, they're pretty vague directions, but that's Tael for you. He never worries about the details. It's all... Anyway, we must have gotten lucky back in the swamp, stumbled upon one of those giants by mistake. We just need to hunt down the other three."

Something clicked: _Do you scrubs feel sad on rainy days, too?_

"Of course!" said Link. "We saw her at the laundry pool. I was still a Deku scrub; do you remember, Tatl?"

Tatl blinked. "Uh... oh, right, kinda, now that you mention it. But listen – we're going to have to get creative about this giant-finding thing. None of the stories talk about _where _they went, they only say _that _they went. So I reckon we need to get there quickly and start talking with the locals. Like we did in the swamp, I guess, but not so much of a fiasco. I mean, really, that was some serious goose chasing we were doing there. At least now we'll have a better idea what we're looking for. Hmm..."

Link nodded. It was all coming back now. It had been his first – no, second – day as a scrub, and they had been trapped outside in the rain. The woman had been crying...

"On the other hand, maybe being all 'Hey there, seen any giants around?' isn't going to work too well. But there would have to be signs, something to look for. We found the first one in a temple, right? So maybe they hang around sacred places. That's the sort of thing we could ask for. Hey. Are you listening?"

"I'm listening," said Link. He remembered now, or at least he thought he did. The woman's fiancée had left her. Something about that had left an impression on him, this grown adult sitting on a park bench in the rain, crying her heart out to a stranger, to a _Deku scrub_ of all creatures, having lost hope so completely, and there was nothing he could have done, that feeling of no matter how many people you tried to help there was still sadness in the world...

"Now, up north... hmm, can't say I know that area too well. Definitely haven't heard of any temples or stuff like that. It's all just mountains and more mountains. I think there's a village or two in the valleys."

...which was nonsense. Link shook his head. He hadn't noticed the voice of the Kokiri boy worming its way into his thoughts.

"The Gorons definitely have one – the rock people, you know them? The weather's warm this time of year, they'd be out and about."

He'd follow the woman for a little longer, Link decided. The least he could do was find out a little more about her situation, see if there was anything he could do.

"I think there are also unicorns around there. They live under the volcanoes, if you find them they grant wishes. Maybe you could just wish for a giant to appear. That would make things easier."

Just for a few minutes, Link decided. It wouldn't be the first time he had tried to-

Tatl growled and flew straight in front of Link's face, making him flinch.

"_Link!_" she snarled. "_Stop ignoring me!_"

"I'm not ignoring..." Link began, and then thought better of it as he caught sight of the expression on the faerie's face.

For a second they continued to stare at each other. Link realised she was waiting for him to say something.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"You'd _better _be. Can we go now?" She crossed her arms.

"Just a few minutes," said Link. "I just want to see-"

"See what? If you can help her? Find her missing beau? A picture book ending for everyone?" Tatl groaned. "You can't stop to help every person you come across..."

"Not _every_ person-"

"...that's the Bombers' job. Hey, yeah. Why don't you refer her to them? We _need _to get going. More pressing problems, remember?"

Link raised his palms in a placating gesture. "Calm down. It will only take-"

"Calm down? _Calm down?_" Her glare was almost as intense as the sun's behind her. "The moon is falling! The _world _is about to _end_! And the one person who can do something about it is busy sticking his nose into other people's _domestic problems_ and you're asking me to calm _down_?"

Link grimaced. The faerie had the knack of twisting things around to make it sound like he was in the wrong. "Look-"

"Oh, don't worry," said Tatl. "I'm calm." She exhaled through her teeth. "Why wouldn't I be calm?"

**CYCLE 2: HYSTERIA  
DAWN of the FIRST DAY**

The red-haired woman headed straight down the eastern thoroughfare for a while longer, then stopped in front of a building on the side of the road. She stood in front of the door for a few seconds, inhaled, exhaled, and walked inside, shutting the door behind her.

As Link drew closer, he considered the building. The simple, antiquated designs painted onto the walls and the small square windows dotting its upper floor reminded him of a cottage, albeit a particularly large one. A few posters hung lopsidedly from either side of the door, cheerfully advertising the upcoming Carnival. ('_Try new culinary sensations at Town Square! See the Indigo-Gos play live! Sideshow games for the children!_')

"That's the Stockpot Inn," said Tatl. "They – you know what an inn, is, right?"

"Of course," said Link. He'd encountered half a dozen of them on his first night in Hyrule's capital.

Tatl nodded. "Okay. With you, I can never be sure."

"Well... wait, what?"

"The Stockpot Inn isn't the only inn in town, but it's the most popular. Oh, and the safest. Most of the others have, uh, issues... you know, like rotten food, peep holes in the bathrooms, murderous innkeepers who sell your body as meat, that sort of thing..."

"You're exaggerating," said Link. She had to be exaggerating.

"Whatever you say, kid," said Tatl.

They had drawn to a stop outside an inn. Neither of them moved.

"Anyway." Tatl circled around him, arms crossed. "Your mystery crying lady sounds like a local, so I reckon she works at the Inn. It's a family business, you know. They all live in the back rooms and – hey, that means she's related to Tortus!"

"Who's Tortus?"

"Only the most gullible guy ever. About, I dunno, thirty years ago, Tael and I managed to convince him that a boatload of pirates..." She shook her head quickly, snapping out of her reverie. "Look, this is nice and all, but why do you care? You don't really know her; we only ever saw the woman once."

"I just..." Link frowned. The _why_ was hard to put into words exactly; it was a nagging feeling more than anything else, a sense that to do nothing would be somehow deeply, deeply wrong. "It's like..."

"Oh, come _on_. This is just sad." With an exasperated grunt, Tatl moved out of the way and motioned towards the door of the inn. "Okay. Go ahead. Go try to help every last stupid person you come across."

Link nodded and started forwards. "Okay. I'll make it quick-"

"Nonononono!" Tatl buzzed in his face again. "That was rev– That– I was being _sarcastic_, you numbskull! Did I mention that the world is ending? Maybe I forgot to mention that. The world is ending! _Get a grip_."

Ignoring her, Link swung open the door (sending a small bell ringing) and entered the Stockpot Inn.

The air inside was warm and stuffy and smelt faintly of onions. The walls, coated in peeling white paint, were bare of any decorations, while the floor sported a simple pattern of chequered green and yellow tiles. The immediate area was a foyer of sorts: as one walked in, there were chairs to the right opposite an L-shaped wooden counter to the left. Opposite the door, a passageway led deeper into the building. The counter was covered with odds and ends – a china vase with flowers, a pile of envelopes, a porcelain cow, a thin wooden block inscribed with 'Check Ins' that faced directly towards the door. Behind the counter was a large opening that revealed a candlelit hallway, presumably for staff access.

Tatl followed Link in, loudly complaining. "Just because I can't physically stop you from doing this doesn't mean you're not the biggest moron in all..."

She trailed off, her attention caught by the activity at the check-in counter.

The red-haired lady indeed worked here: she was standing behind the counter, arguing with another, older, woman. Where the former was tall and stringy, the latter was round and portly, covered in layers of caked make-up and expensive looking clothing. The folds of flesh on the side of her head made her face seem disproportionately small. The earrings and multiple layered necklaces merely cemented the appearance of a woman who wasn't afraid of wealth, decadence incarnate.

"...say what you want, but we all know what you were playing at," the older woman was saying.

The younger lady had her arms folded. "I don't have to put up with this, you know."

"Is that a threat?"

"No, but..."

"Don't think for a second you can threaten me. What are you going to do, call in your lowlife friends? I could have the town council on this rat's nest you call an _inn_ in a heartbeat."

(Tatl seemed entranced by the argument unfolding before them; her eyes were sparkling with voyeuristic delight. Link couldn't say he was surprised.)

The red-haired lady's voice was cold. "The Stockpot Inn has been serving Clock Town's tourist industry for over a century. If you shut us down, there'll..."

The older woman let out a high-pitched laugh. "Empty threats, girl."

"I'm not threatening you! I just want you to get the hell out of-"

The bell at the door jingled. Link turned and hopped out of the way just in time to avoid a Goron – one of the race of thickset rock-people – who staggered in under the weight of a rucksack that looked big enough to carry a dozen humans.

"Oh, pardon me-goro," the Goron muttered, seeming to register Link's presence only five seconds later.

The red-haired lady shot the older woman a glare. "If you'll excuse me..."

"Pah! Such disrepect."

"...I have paying customers to deal with."

With that, she turned to the arriving Goron, a harried smile on her face.

"Welcome to the Stockpot Inn! Can I help you?"

"Yes, please-goro..." the lumbering creature replied.

The rotund woman snorted dismissively and turned towards the door. As her head moved she noticed Link and Tatl watching her. Her eyes narrowed and she walked towards them, the flab on her legs wobbling with every step.

Looking puzzled, she stopped in front of Link and asked of him:

"Are you the expert investigator I hired?"

Tatl was in Link's ear whispering before he even had a chance to begin shaking his head. "_Lie_."

Link shot the faerie a look – naturally that was the first suggestion she would make – and turned back to face the woman, who had evidently taken his silence as an answer.

"Of course you are. How else would you have found me in a dump like this?" The woman laughed, her thickly made-up lips parting to reveal two rows of perfectly white teeth. "Of course you know who _I_ am. Madame Aroma, chair of the Carnival events committee and wife to the mayor."

She offered a perfumed hand. There was a oblong onyx gemstone set on a ring around her wrinkled middle finger.

Tatl was still looking at him expectantly. After a moment's hesitation, Link reached out and shook Aroma's hand. "Pleased to meet you," he said.

Madame Aroma looked him up and down. "Hmm. I must say, when they told me to expect a young man, I didn't realise they meant someone quite _that_ young." She sniffed. "But never mind that. What concerns me are results."

"Right," said Link, nodding. "Results." (Tatl was quietly snickering about an inch from his left ear, making it very hard for him to keep a level voice.)

"The person I want you to find is my son, Kafei. Do you know him? No? Really? You must have at least seen the posters we put up. He disappeared about a month ago. He's about average height. He has his father's blue hair, and my father's thick frame. He... you know what, I'll have my husband's secretary send you the details." She folded her hands. "The thing you must know about Kafei is that he had no reason to run away. He went to all the best schools, made all the right connections... a few _questionable _friends, but on the whole... There were some business opportunities in the works, as well. Having a mayor for a husband has its perks, you know."

"I see..." said Link cautiously.

Aroma nodded. "Of course you do. Kafei had no reason to run away, you understand? You mustn't waste your time chasing down that path."

"So what do-"

Madame Aroma glanced around the room quickly and lowered her voice. "Just between you and me... see that girl at the counter behind me?"

Link made the obvious guess. "Was she Kafei's fiancée?"

Aroma blinked in surprise. "Why, yes! You really _are _a pro... Her name is Anju, and yes, Kafei was _involved_ with her, believe it or not. I certainly can't. All her family have to their name is this ramshackle place and a cupboard of old silverware. And this girl, this Anju, is completely incapable of looking after herself. Why, she can't even cook. And to think he wanted to _live_ with her for the rest of his life... If you ask me, she roped poor Kafei into this somehow. I don't know. Voodoo tricks. Blackmail. Wedlock. She isn't his type. I should know, I'm his mother.

"Anyway, I'm not saying there was any..." – she glanced around again – "...any foul play involved, but if there was... well, let's just say that Kafei changed his will not long before he disappeared."

Tatl had stopped laughing.

"You're not suggesting...?" said Link.

Aroma nodded grimly. "Of course, I'm hoping it's nothing so serious. But I'm sure someone of your calibre understands the need to consider every possibility. So... well... just keep an eye on that Anju woman."

"I'll look into it," said Link.

"Of course you will," said Aroma. "It's terrible, you know... I've been so worried since he disappeared. I can barely get food down my throat for worry. I've lost five pounds..."

Link couldn't help glancing at her bulging waist. "That's... too bad..."

"But my! Look at the time!" said Aroma. As an afterthought, she glanced at the nearest clock. "Yes, I'm supposed to be back at the mayoral office right now! Important business, you see," she added in a confidential whisper.

Link blinked. "Um..."

"Just come see me there if you need anything," Aroma said. "I have to dash. I... oh, but I do need to ask. Do you need anything... _initially_?"

Link furrowed his brow. "I don't foll-"

"Say you need ten thousand up front," whispered Tatl.

Link swatted at her. "No, nothing right now," he said. There was only so far he was willing to carry the ruse, and following Tatl's advice was well beyond the line as far as he was concerned.

Aroma's face brightened. "Oh. A gentleman of honour... Well, then."

Humming tunelessly, Madame Aroma turned and exited through the door.

"Well, that was interesting-" Tatl began.

A loud _crash!_ from across the foyer interrupted her.

Link turned. A vase had fallen from the counter and shattered. Green-white shards of porcelain were still bouncing across the ground. A lone daffodil lay uselessly on the floor tiles, while a small mass of water and dirt slowly seeped out around it.

The innkeeper, Anju, still had her arm extended over the counter where the vase had once been. Her cheeks were flushed and she was breathing heavily. She caught Link watching her and slammed her fist on the counter, sending a pile of papers flying.

"I don't _believe _her!" she snapped. "Does the old sow think I'm _deaf_? As if I don't already have enough to deal with without her spreading her ridiculous insinuations around town?"

"Hey, hey," said Tatl. She flew over to the woman, hands outstretched. "Take it easy. We didn't mean to..."

Anju laughed sharply. "Don't flatter yourselves. This has nothing to do with you. If she wants to throw her money at private detectives, good for her, maybe something will turn up. But she has _no_ right to barge in here every _gods damned second morning_, right in front of the _guests_, harassing me and my family..." She leant over the counter to look at the remains of the vase, and pursed her lips. "Wonderful."

Link's upbringing among the Kokiri kicked in. "Let me help," he said, striding over and beginning to gather the larger shards to one side.

"No, don't... to hell..." Anju made a half-hearted attempt to wave him away, then deflated. "Thanks," she said. "Goddesses... that vase has been sitting there since before I was born... I don't know what came over me there..."

"Bitchy mother-in-law?" suggested Tatl.

"...that sounds about right."

"I don't think it's personal," said Link thoughtfully. "Her son disappeared, she was scared, and she started conjuring wild theories. Maybe it's her way of coping." Just like that man in Kakariko village whose two sons disappeared: he became delusional, accusing his neighbours one by one of killing his boys for food (which, in those days, was almost plausible), and trying to kill them in revenge, until eventually he was banished. For everyone's safety, they said, as they cast him out to the mountains where nothing grew any more. He'll be better off there.

Anju frowned. "You don't know Kafei's mother than. From the very start..."

"Still, you can't blame..."

"Kid," muttered Tatl. "Just shut up, will you?" She turned to Anju. "You'll have to excuse Link here. He's a bit, well, young and stupid."

"Oh, it's no problem," said Anju. "I just hope you don't take Madame Aroma too seriously."

"So you're not an axe murderer?" said Tatl.

"I assure you I am not," said Anju.

"So there's no-one you'd want to take a hatchet to? Not even Aroma?"

Anju smirked and began rifling through a stack of letters. "Blood is messy. I'd use poison."

"Heh. Good point..." Tatl trailed off, seeming to have forgotten what the subject was. After a moment, she blinked and went on: "So, uh, do you have any idea where Kafei might be?"

"Wouldn't be here if I did," said Anju. "Believe me, the first week after he left..." She ripped open an envelope, frowning at the contents. "Oh, _please_. Who pays for window cleaning?"

"The first week...?" prompted Tatl.

Anju shrugged irritably, flipping through to the next letter. "I don't see how this matters to you, anyway," she muttered.

"Just curious."

There wasn't a broom or a dustpan in sight, so Link satisfied himself with picking up all the visible vase fragments and transferring them to a small waste basket in the corner.

(In the end it turned had out that, like dozens of other young headstrong fools, the man's sons had run from home to fight for the stronger side. They might or might not have been part of a squadron of men and monsters guarding Gerudo Pass. Link might or might not have encountered them. He might or might not have asked them to stand down. They might or might not have drawn their blades anyway.)

"That's all the sharp bits," said Link, turning to face Anju again. "If you want-"

"Oh, no, I can mop up the rest," said the innkeeper. "It'll give me something to do. Thank you for your help."

"You're welcome... are you sure, though?"

"She's sure," said Tatl. "Places to go, remember?"

"True." Link stood up.

Anju tilted her head and regarded Link inquisitively.

"What?" said Link.

"Your accent. You're not from around here, are you?"

Tatl protested before Link could decide what to say. "He doesn't have an accent."

"He does," insisted Anju. She opened another envelope and tossed its contents into a separate box.

"He does _not_."

"I-" began Link.

Anju shook her head. "He does. It's faint but it's definitely there. Believe me, I've been taking check-ins at this desk since I was twelve: I can tell."

Tatl looked at her dubiously. "Really?"

"Really."

"Does this matter?" said Link a little more loudly than was necessary.

The other two exchanged glances.

"...maybe?" said Tatl, trying and failing to hide a large grin.

"Actually," said Anju, "Madame Aroma wouldn't give a foreigner the time of the day. So I don't think you're the detective she hired. Am I right?"

Link grimaced abashedly. "Yes." Feeling uncomfortable, he added, "But I only lied be-"

"Hey, hey," said Anju, holding up a hand. "I'm sick to death of the old cow, especially after this last month. At this point I'd salute anyone who wanted to con her out of her money..."

"We're not trying to con her," said Link indignantly. "We just wanted-"

Anju winked. "If you say so, kid. Aroma has it coming."

"See?" whispered Tatl, who had found her way to his ear unnoticed. "I told you; this is what happens when you lie. No one-"

This time Link managed to clip her on the wings as he swatted at her. She laughed and darted a safe distance up into the air.

"Joking, joking," she said quickly. "Seriously, you need to calm down, kid. All done here?"

Link paused, considering. It did seem wrong just to leave things like this. But there were more urgent matters at hand, and he couldn't see any obvious ways of helping. One thing at a time: that would have been Navi's advice.

"I'm done," said Link. "We have more important things to worry about."

"Ah." Tatl looked on the verge of breaking something. "Really? I. Hadn't. Noticed."

Link turned to Anju. "We'll be off now. Sorry for-"

He paused, seeing her. The innkeeper was standing bolt upright in the same spot. Her face was pale; her eyes wide; her lips, opening and closing mechanically. She was tightly clutching the remaining unopened envelopes, staring at the top of the pile.

"Miss?" said Link. "Anju? Are you all right?"

She looked at him, her eyes slowly refocusing. "I? I... yes, yes. Yes, I'm fine, I just..." She looked back at the envelopes in her hand. "I thought..."

"What is it?" said Tatl. "Is it the letters?"

"Nothing's wrong," said Anju. She blinked a few times and looked around. "I... I'm just so stressed, is all. Imagining things." She looked at the envelopes in her hand again, as if expecting them to have vanished. "Please, I... Let yourselves out. I have work to... many guests, lots of work to do right now."

Link opened his mouth to say something, and Tatl immediately pinched him on the neck.

"_Tact_," she whispered. "Let's go."

She ushered him towards the door.

"Have a... nice day..." came the innkeeper's dazed voice from behind them.

Tatl waited until the door was shut behind them and they had moved well out into the busy street again before speaking.

"If she doesn't want to be disturbed..." she said with a roll of the eyes.

"She looked like she'd seen a ghost," said Link.

"So what if she has?" said Tatl. "I seriously can't believe this. I mean, the whole super-pacifist thing, I see where you're coming from, but you are _not_ a god. You cannot fix everyone's problems at the same time."

"Well..." said Link. Something told him the faerie wouldn't accept _Not today_ as an answer.

"Yeah, thought so. Look, I applaud altruism as much as the next faerie, but I seriously think you've got your priorities screwed up. What's so special about this woman and her husband anyway? We walked past half a dozen beggars last time we were in town and you didn't stop to get them employed. Do you want to go handing out free candy to crying kids as well?"

"We could-"

"And I'm ninety-nine percent sure that this Anju didn't do her boyfriend in. And his mother looks too flabby to be a murderer. So I'm betting that he ran away, doesn't want to be found, and there's no point sticking your nose into it any further."

"But..."

Tatl cut him off. "I mean, it's sad. But. It. Can. Wait. The time travel trick isn't going to work too many times, right? Skull Kid and that mask is our priority. If you want to go around playing matchmaker, detective, whatever you're thinking, there'll be time once our current crisis is out of the way."

"Or next time we're in town," added Link.

"Or... oh, for crying out loud." She threw her hands up in the air. "This is an attention span thing, isn't it? I bet by the time we get out into Termina field you'll have forgotten about this missing Kafei guy completely."

"Why would I forget?"

"Because – because... Come on. Let's get going for the mountains. We've lost nearly..." – she glanced in the direction of the clock tower, frowning – "...an hour already. Wait, no, half an hour. Um... ring points to sky... yeah, half an hour. I – hey, wait up!"

Link didn't slow down; he knew full well that Tatl could fly at twice his walking speed without effort. "Remind me again," he said, "what's in the mountains?"

Tatl groaned. "You're horrible, you know that?" She zipped past him and turned around, flying backwards. "So I was thinking about what Tael was saying..."

* * *

**A/N:** How is this chapter so long? _Nothing happens_...

...I mean, hi again and I hope you enjoyed the latest exciting, eventful chapter of _Insomnia_. Refreshments will be available during the interval. No birds allowed, sorry.

I took a break and then found it hard to get going. Especially because the sidequests are just so... augh. I mean, when I was planning this story out it didn't occur to me how ADHD my version of Link was going to get to explain how he even decides to _start_ the sidequests in the middle of his fifteen days of hell. There was probably a more elegant way of handling it; I cut my losses. Reviews appreciated as always, though if you repeat exactly what I just said I may pop a vein or something.

Hmm, since the last update... I started/finished _The Wind Waker_? That was good. Story-wise it's better than _Twilight Princess_. (Not even the very awesome Zant and Midna could make up for the unnecessary-Ganon-appearance syndrome).

And, yeah. I really shouldn't be treating these author's notes as a blog, so I will totally shut up now. And plug "Girl and Wolf", which is a weird oneshot I totally just got around to uploading. And shut up.

-tiki


	30. A Hylian Tale

**INSOMNIA  
based on _The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask_**

**Termina Field**

Clock Town smelt of sawdust and sweat, of fresh pastries and overripe fruit, of civilisation in all its highs and lows: joyous and stifling and overwhelming all at once. Stepping outside the town walls, then, was a cleansing of the senses: the quiet scents of sparse wild flowers; the subtle tones of grass and sky. It was a shock to the senses and a relief all at once.

The mountains were hard to miss. As soon as Link stepped outside the town's northern gates, there they were: a series of rising peaks, one after another, stretching across the horizon. They were brown and rocky at the base, but further up – a few hundred feet, a few thousand feet? He couldn't tell from here – the mountains turned to greys and blue-whites and vanished behind thick white clouds. Their eastern faces sparkled in the morning sun: ice, perhaps.

"Admit it," said Tatl. "You're impressed." She had been watching his face closely since they had left Clock Town.

"A little," Link conceded. There was a mountain in Hyrule, too, probably taller and steeper than these, but that was only an isolated peak. With so many up ahead, he didn't imagine it would be an enjoyable climb. "How do we get up?"

"Oh, I know the way," said Tatl. "It's pretty simple. You just head dead north – you know, the way we're already facing – and once you hit the foot of the mountains there are signs, and then there's a path."

"Right," said Link.

"Shall we go?" said Tatl.

Without waiting for an answer she took off, buzzing low above the grass.

"Hey!" Link launched into a sprint, but she was already well ahead of him. "Wait up!"

"Ha!" Tatl flipped around, now flying backwards at nearly the same speed. "Don't be such a kid. Run faster!"

**-oOo-**

After Link had caught up with Tatl (and make no mistake, the kid wasn't faster than her, she'd just slowed down after a while because she was being generous), he started talking to her. Tatl didn't mind, because if nothing else it meant that he was no longer fixated on that random bleeding heart woman in town. Now _that_ was one hour of her life she'd never get back.

"So is this all part of Termina?" Link said, motioning at the mountain range.

"Yeah, more or less," said Tatl nonchalantly. Actually, Termina's northern borders weren't very well defined. You could go on north through the mountains for weeks and weeks, and though the inhabited places and the spectacular views stopped after the first day or so, there was no magic line anywhere that said 'Termina on this side, whatever-the-next-nation-over-is-called on the other'. Or so she'd heard. She and Tael had never been that interested in the outer reaches.

She thought she heard Link mutter "wow" or something.

"Bigger than whatever backwater place you're from, eh?" she said.

"I'm not sure," Link said, which clearly meant _yes_.

Tatl nodded, satisfied, and turned to stare aimlessly at the mountains ahead.

One thing was troubling her. The Festival of Time was in three days – in other words, it was the middle of spring. So there really shouldn't have still been so much ice in the mountains. Actually, it shouldn't have been anywhere near this cold. Something was seriously amiss here... come to think of it, the swamp had been completely rotten when they'd first gotten there. Maybe this was Skull Kid screwing with the weather again?

She didn't mention this aloud, though. No point getting Link worked up about it right now. Heavens knew he was already annoying enough in a cheerful mood.

They went around a mushroom-shaped rock formation, and Tatl immediately spotted it off to the side: a dark green reptile, big as a horse.

If she remembered right, it was called a Dodongo. Big and slow and it _breathed fire_. How awesome was that? Normally that was the domain of dragons and Festival sideshow performers, but these things didn't care about that. They'd been all 'screw you, natural order' and decided, hell with it, they were going to breathe fire anyway. Even the town soldiers stayed away from them, knowing that their pointy little sticks were nothing against its breath.

Anyway. Dodongos were great. Tatl wondered if Link would kill this one if she asked nicely enough.

"Hey, look," she said. "Big threatening lizard thing."

"It's not in the way," said Link immediately.

"I didn't say-"

"I know what you're going to ask," said Link, "and I'm not going to kill it unless it's trying to kill me."

"It's waiting for you to pass," she said. "Gonna get you from behind. If you don't go for it now..."

"It's asleep," said Link with a small smile.

Tatl looked a second time, groaned – for crying out loud, it could have picked a better time to nap – and turned back to the kid. "You're annoying."

"No, I'm just not..." – he fished around for a word – "sadistic like you are."

_Sadistic? _That_ was the best insult you could come up with?_

"Whatever," said Tatl.

She shot one last longing look at the Dodongo as they passed it.

**-oOo-**

The mountains were steep, but the path they had chosen was relatively friendly, stopping just short of a painful climb.

Tatl seemed a little distracted, looking around sharply at the scenery. Link wondered why: she said she'd been here before, and she certainly didn't look lost.

"Are you sure you know where we're going?" he said, just to make sure.

"Of course," said Tatl. "It's a bit bumpy up ahead, and then we hit a village. I've been here before, I told you already."

They reached the crest of a particularly steep incline, and from there Link could see the ground ahead faded from a dull rocky grey to icy blue and white. Hints of snow tipped the edges of tree leaves; ice nestled in the edges of the path where the ground met the surrounding steep hills.

"That's snow," said Tatl, pointing.

"I've seen snow before," said Link.

"Really? Then you're an idiot. Those shorts you're wearing don't even go down to your knees. Are you planning on freezing to death? Is that your secret plan for saving the world?"

Link ignored her; it wasn't that cold yet, and from what she'd said it didn't sound like they'd be out here for too long.

During the Seven Years War much of Hyrule's north-east froze over, wreaking havoc on irrigation and agriculture and virtually driving the aquatic Zora people to extinction. Link had gone there once and it was there that he had first seen snow. Thinly layered over frozen mud and rivers, the soft white powder crushed silently underfoot, gradually soaking through his boots and leading to nights spent shivering by a fire. There was no dry firewood around there, and what little magic of her own Navi was able to apply resulted in little more than a flickering, finger-sized flame. It wasn't natural, she said, for a coldness so intense to exist in just this small area.

A thought occurred to Link. "How can it be so warm in the swamp and so cold here in the mountains?"

Tatl didn't seem to hear him. The more Link thought about it, though, the more sense it made.

"It shouldn't be this cold, should it?" he said. That was why Tatl had been looking uneasy. "It's like the acid rain in the swamp, isn't it? The weather is wrong."

Tatl looked the other way sheepishly.

"Well?"

"The ice doesn't usually come down this far," she said with a shrug. "Even in the middle of winter."

"But it's not winter," said Link. He may have slightly lost track of the days since he left Hyrule, but it had definitely been mid-spring when he'd encountered Skull Kid and the faeries in that forest.

"So what if it lasted a bit longer around here?" said Tatl. "It's no big deal."

Now that Link thought about it, he felt as if someone had already told him about the unusual weather: not just here, but in the swamp and other parts as well. He couldn't think where he might have heard this, but it made a lot of sense. Skull Kid – or Majora's Mask, whichever was truer – had done something to the swamp to foul the waters, and killing that Odolwa creature was what had ended the curse. This had to be the same sort of thing.

"It's got to be Skull Kid," he said, turning to Tatl. "He-"

"Yeah, yeah." Tatl rolled her eyes. "Screwy weather, magic curses. I'm not stupid."

Link nodded. "Why do you think he-"

She threw her hands up in exasperation. "Who cares how or why? The cold weather's here, it's a hassle, it's one more thing we need to deal with. We don't _need_ to know what Skull Kid's thinking or what he ate for breakfast."

"But doesn't-"

"Nonononono." Tatl waved her hand in front of his mouth. "I just want us to go for a whole hour without you loudly obsessing over somebody's life story."

_Life story?_, Link wanted to ask, but stopped short, seeing the glare the faerie was giving him.

"Just... shut up," she went on.

"Okay," said Link uncertainly.

A couple of minutes passed in relative silence. Link looked around. The snow had become thicker, at least a few inches now, and if he squinted he thought he could see a few fresh flakes drifting down from overhead.

Out of the corner of his eye, Link saw Tatl looking around restlessly. She was drumming her fingers, glancing around at the surroundings, and all in all trying very hard to distract herself. Her expression grew more annoyed with each passing second.

"If you _have _to talk," she said after about a minute, "at least make it interesting."

Link wisely avoided laughing. "Like what?" he said.

"I don't know." Tatl threw her hands up. "Something that isn't all doom and gloom."

"Uh..."

"Tell me where your stupid name comes from. Or why you're wearing the ugliest getup in all history."

Link shook his head: that would only lead to things he wasn't prepared to talk about.

"Okay, then. Say something boring so I can pretend to listen. Complain about the weather – well, not that, but you know what I mean. Sing a song. Can you sing? I bet you can't sing. Boys can't sing for shreds. Tell a story."

"A story, huh?" said Link.

The word struck a chord. He liked stories. No, maybe that was the Kokiri boy. How long ago would that have been? Only a few months, surely. Strange. Less than a year ago, he had been sitting in those blue-sky forest clearings with the other Kokiri children, hearing them recite tales of the outside world. It was always the same few stories, but different tellers could make them sound completely different.

"A story," said Tatl. "You know any of those?"

"Yes..."

He tried to recall one of them, but they didn't resurface easily. There were too many other things in the months since then, endless horrors and techniques and skills that had to be learnt and completely, utterly absorbed into one's being if one was to survive the day.

Finally a story came to him, an inspiring one, one of the Kokiri boy's favourites. He opened his mouth and began to recite, and it was almost as if he could hear Saria's voice speaking alongisde him:

"Once upon a time there was a kingdom-"

"A kingdom," repeated Tatl flatly.

"It's how the story goes," said Link.

"Uh-huh," said Tatl.

Shooting her a quizzical look, Link went on. "In this kingdom there lived a princess, who was so beautiful that any man who saw her was overcome by her beauty.

_One day, a great and ill-tempered dragon spied the princess as she tended to the flowers in the castle garden. He, too, was overcome by her beauty, and before anyone could stop him he had swooped down and snatched the princess. He took her far, far away, to his lair deep in the mountains._

_The people of the kingdom were in shock. In his desperation, the king declared that the man who slew the dragon and rescued his daughter would be given riches beyond imagining._

_Now, word of the princess and the king's reward spread far and wide. In one town, there were two brothers who both fancied they could slay the dragon. Since only one man could claim the reward, they decided to travel separately, and see who made it there first._

_The older brother left that night, taking the family sword and shield with him. It took some begging and borrowing for the younger brother to get himself a weapon worthy of dragon slaying. By the time he left he was nearly a day behind his elder sibling._

_After a few days' travel, the older brother encountered a beggar by the side of the road._

"_Please, sir," said the beggar. "I have no money and no home to go to. Will you lend me that cloak you are wearing, so that I do not freeze in my sleep? Surely a warrior such as you has no need of it."_

_But the older brother was unconvinced. "Leave me alone, beggar," he said. "I cannot spare this cloak, for I must face the dragon in full health."_

_And he continued down the road, leaving the beggar behind._

_Not long afterwards, the younger brother encountered the same beggar. Being younger and less world-weary than his brother, he stopped to ask the beggar a question._

"_What ails you, sir?" he asked._

"_Please, sir," the beggar said. "I have neither money nor home to go to. Will you lend me that clock your are wearing, so that I do not freeze in my sleep?"_

_The younger brother thought about this for some time, and relented. "You may have my cloak," he said, removing the cloak. "You have more need of it than I do. I can start a fire if I need warmth."_

_The beggar was grateful, and wanted to offer the younger brother something in return. "Please, sir. Do you see this hammer here? I was once a mender of horseshoes before misfortune fell upon me. This hammer was a tool of my trade. Take it as a token of my thanks. It will serve you well if ever you are in need of it."_

_Although he did not think he needed it, the younger brother accepted the gift. "Thank you, beggar," he said. "May the Goddesses watch over you."_

"_And over you," the beggar replied._

_Meanwhile, the older brother continued towards the dragon's lair. On his way he encountered a long, raging river, across which there was a narrow stone bridge. Standing at the foot of the bridge-_

At this point Tatl let out a loud yawn.

Link looked at her sharply. "Am I boring you?" he said.

"Let me guess," said Tatl by way of answer. "Older brother continues on his way, acting like any sensible person would and saving his supplies. He reaches the dragon and fights it and it kills him."

"Actually..."

"Oh, okay. The dragon beats him in a fight and he goes home feeling all embarrassed. Meanwhile, the younger brother gives away everything he's carrying to random sob stories in the street, and collects a huge pile of useless junk in return. Then he defeats the dragon with the power of love or something. He rescues the princess, his older brother begs to become his loyal servant, he gets married to the princess, they blow out the candles and have themselves a few hundred children. How far off am I?"

Feeling a little hurt, Link threw up his hands and looked away. "_You _asked for a story."

"Yeah, for a _real _story, not some feel-good kiddie nonsense." Tatl rolled her eyes. "Those stories? They're all exactly the same. They all have the same characters, the same sugar-coating, the same useless 'life lessons'... a baby could write one. A _brain-dead_ baby _rat _could write one. In its sleep."

Link sighed and said nothing.

The path widened out, revealing a the village Tatl had mentioned. A dozen log houses stood atop a small rise, neatly arranged like frosted buns on a baker's tray. Behind them, a thick sparkling line curved across the ground – it took Link a moment to recognise it as a river frozen over. Tall, snow-logged pines filled out the landscape, and the entire area was surrounded on all sides by tall, icy cliff walls.

"A nice place to live," Link remarked.

Tatl laughed. "Oh, most of the owners don't _live _here. They're from Clock Town, or the coast, and this little spot is their getaway. Scenic walks in the summer, sledding in the winter."

"Sledding?" said Link.

Tatl gave him a look. "I thought you'd seen snow before."

"I have. What's..."

"Sledding is when people with too much time on their hands slide down hills and crash into trees. Great for the spectators."

"Oh." Was she being sarcastic?, Link wondered. "So do you think anyone's around?"

"Doubt it," said Tatl. "No smoke from any of the chimneys. Looks like the cold has scared everyone away." She smirked. "That's not a bad thing, though. If we need supplies we can always break into one of those houses."

"We're not breaking into anywhere," said Link crossly.

Tatl laughed. "Lighten up, kid!"

There was a wooden bridge in the distance, arching over the frozen river. On the other end, Link could make out a signpost pointing up a steep path.

"That way?" he said, indicating.

Tatl looked and shook her head. "No, we want to head to the Goron village... the path's to our right. If this village is empty, the Gorons are pretty much the only people we can talk to. And there's no way we're tracking down anything – even a giant or whatever – in these mountains without a little local help."

Link nodded: it made sense. "So where does that path ahead go?" he asked.

"Oh, uh..." Tatl screwed her eyes for a few seconds. "Ah, that probably goes to Snowhead... which _is_, before you ask, the highest peak in the mountain range. Guess why it's called Snowhead."

"Why?"

"You have to guess."

"Um..." Link shrugged. "Because it's snowy?"

"Because it's _always_ snowy. Even in the middle of summer, you can always find a bit of snow right at the top. It never melts completely."

Link thought about that. "Is the mountain in the shade?"

"I have no idea," said Tatl. "I've never actually been there. Nobody _goes_ there. The path is kaput; avalanches, that sort of thing."

"So how do you know that there's snow-"

"Because _everyone _knows that," said Tatl, exasperated. "It's an interesting name. At least, it's more interesting than 'Clock Town'. Do you know why it's called Clock Town?"

By this time they had circled around the houses and were threading through a narrow path which led downwards and away from the village. Link glanced at a sign as they walked past it: it read 'Goron Village ahead: beware of predators on path'.

"Predators?" said Link.

"No idea. Tael and I never stuck this low to the ground. We're not as..." – she rubbed her chin thoughtfully – "gravitationally challenged as you are. Or Skull Kid. Or, you know, most things heavier than a egg sandwich."

The path wound around a bend, hiding the village from view.

Now if only there was something he could do about the cold. There was no wind, thankfully, but Link was starting to wonder if he could find some extra layers somewhere. Perhaps the Gorons could help. It couldn't be too much further, could it?

**-oOo-**

The sun was overhead now. As the path snaked left and right, there was nothing to see on the icy cliff faces on either side, no distinguishing trees or shrubs to serve as a landmark, not even stray rocks. Link began to feel sure he'd lost his sense of direction by now – there was too much winding; the path could have turned around without him noticing.

Tatl seemed confident about where they were going, though, which was good enough for him. After everything that had happened these past few days, Woodfall especially, Link felt it couldn't hurt to trust her.

Speaking of which...

"I just thought of another story," Link said.

Tatl looked at him suspiciously. "The boring kind?"

"It's different," he said.

"Okay." The faerie shrugged. "Let's have it."

Link paused, considering. Where to start?

"There was once a village," he said at length, "and in this village there were many houses where people lived, but there was one house which no one would go near...

_The house had once belonged to a very rich family, but nobody had seen those people for a very long time. The house's windows were dark and boarded up, and cobwebs had grown around it. It stood by itself in a dark corner of the village, separate from all the other houses and shops. Some said it was haunted by the spirits of the dead. People were afraid to go near it._

_One day, a traveller who was visiting the town came upon the house. He hadn't heard about it and was curious. First he knocked on the door to ask who lived there. But not a sound came from the house. Then he went around, peering through the windows. But they were all boarded up too tight, and he could see nothing but darkness through the slits. Finally, his curiosity got the better of him. He walked to the door and turned the handle._

_Slowly, it swung open._

"Ooh, spooky," said Tatl.

"You don't mind it?" said Link cautiously.

The faerie shrugged. "So far so good."

"Okay...

_It was dark inside the house, even during the middle of the day, and the traveller – let's call him Wanderer – could barely see a thing. The floor boards creaked, and with every step his face brushed through a dozen cobwebs._

"_Hello?" he called._

_A voice responded from deep within the house. It was dry and raspy and sounded as if it hadn't spoken for a very long time. "Here... over here..."_

_Wanderer ventured further into the house. He saw the silhouette of a Skulltula spider in the shadows, its legs slowly curling through the air._

"_Hello?" he said again._

_To his surprise, the spider spoke. "Over here..."_

_Wanderer was scared now. "You're not any normal spider. What are you?"_

"_We were once human like you," the creature said. "We had real arms and real legs and real faces. We were happy, even... but our happiness came at the expense of others', and so we were cursed into this shape."_

_The creature moved further into the light, and Wanderer looked on in horror – what had looked like a Skulltula from afar was something much, much worse. Though most of its legs were thin and hard like a spider's, from one of its sides a very human arm protruded. The arm lay still, paralysed. And on the creature's back, right in the middle, was a patch of veins and hair and a single, human eye, which stared at Wanderer._

_The eye blinked, and Wanderer nearly turned and ran right then. But the creature went on:_

"_Do not be afraid. We will not hurt you."_

"_We?" said Wanderer._

"_Only myself and my children: three sons and two daughters. My wife, bless her heart, passed away before she could succumb to the curse."_

"_Who cursed you? What did you do?" said Wanderer._

"_It doesn't matter," said the creature. "The curse can be broken. That is what matters. You are the first person to set foot inside this house since the curse. You must break the curse for us."_

"_I cannot help you unless you tell me how you were cursed!" said Wanderer._

"_Please. If not for me, for my children! They have not seen daylight for decades. They are so miserable." The creature was nearly hysterical now. "Please. If you break the curse on my family, we will make you very rich. Whatever you want. You shall have it!"_

_Maybe Wanderer was moved by the though of the children, by the possibility of making these strangers happy. Or maybe he was just a greedy fool, lured by the promise of wealth. Whatever it was, he agreed to the creature's request._

"_Thank you," the creature said. "Here is how you must break the curse: Once my wealth and influence spread far and wide, reaching every corner of the land. Now in their place there is only dust, death and spiders. There are a hundred spiders-of-the-curse spread through the land, as gold as coin and as immoveable as my greed. The power of the curse resides within them. If they are all destroyed, so too is the curse."_

"_You would have me kill them all?" said Wanderer._

"_Yes, yes!" said the creature. "We're counting on you! Free my family from this curse and we shall reward you beyond imagination!"_

"_But how do I find these spiders-of-the-curse?"_

"_Just keep your eyes out," said the creature. "Don't feel rushed. We have waited decades to be saved; we can wait a few years longer..."_

A high-pitched howl echoed down the path. The sound was instantly familiar, and with a rush of adrenaline Link felt his combat awareness heightening.

"Did you hear that?" said Tatl.

"Wolfos," said Link grimly. Fierce canine beasts, larger than a grown man.

"So you know your wildlife after all," said Tatl. "They're probably around the bend; there's an open area with trees and stuff. I'd be ready if I were you."

"Right," said Link. He drew his sword and held it loosely in his left. Brushing against the snow, it drew a razor-thin line along the ground. "Any other advice?"

"Advice?" said Tatl, looking surprised. "Uh... white Wolfos hunt in pairs, so watch your back, I guess?"

"Right," said Link. They rounded the bend and he took in the scene – a frozen body of water, with bridges connecting the edges to a pair of round snowy islands in its centre. Halfway across, a snow-covered beast turned at the sound his arrival. "Here goes."

"Yeah," said Tatl. She sounded strangely pleased. "Here goes."

* * *

**A/N:** Still easing into this cycle. I think I've found my feet, though. That may not mean faster chapters but it should mean chapters I like more...

^ See? No self-deprecating comments, whining about how it could have been better, etc.! It's like I'm a completely different person!

Over the months a few people have asked how Link is going for so long without sleep. I'll just promise upfront that the question will be addressed - probably around the start of Cycle 3 - but don't expect much more than handwaving and _deus ex machina_. If you've been really, really, really paying attention, that's a hint.

Next chapter: Gorons! Plot movement! Snowmen! Okay, maybe not snowmen. But Gorons!


	31. The Goron Village

**INSOMNIA  
based on _The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask_**

**Spectacle Pass  
The Northern Mountains**

Link hadn't noticed the cold before but he was noticing it now.

"How much further is it?" he gasped. He was standing with hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

"The Goron village?" said Tatl. "Not far. Nice kill, by the way. Those things were ferocious."

Both of the white Wolfos had fought viciously, hammering blow against blow on the face of his shield, and the blood had pumped furiously through his veins as he brought his sword into play, slicing and spraying the snow a ghastly shade of red, but when the lupine predators had fallen to the ground, red circles growing in the snow beneath them, that Link noticed – truly noticed for the first time – how thin the air was here, how much the wind and snowflakes stung at his skin, how cold it was. It was like that burst of energy he'd expended had been the one thing keeping him warm.

"We should move," he said. He straightened his back, was surprised at the effort it took.

"Uh huh," said Tatl. She nodded down the path. "You okay there? You look... different."

"Just a little tired," said Link.

He began to walk.

Tatl scrutinised him. "Cold, more like. We need to find you some extra layers."

"We do," said Link. He ducked his head, shielding his face from the worst of the snow.

They continued to walk.

Goddesses, this _was_ bad. He could have sworn the snow and the wind had doubled in intensity in the last minute. At least the water hadn't soaked through his boots yet. Now _that_ would not be fun.

"So," said Tatl. "Do you get a lot of snow back... wherever you're from?"

"Not really," said Link. "Just about never."

"So what, then? Tropical paradise?"

"I come from a kingdom called Hyrule."

"Never heard of it," said Tatl without missing a beat.

"Really?"

"'Fraid not," said Tatl.

Link feigned an exasperated sigh. Actually, he was just grateful for the distraction.

"You and your friends ambushed me only a month out from there. Surely you've..."

She flashed him a superior smile. "We got there through the Underforest, remember? That weird underground place with the trees and the abysses? The normal rules of distance and all that don't exactly apply down there. The Great Faerie said that's just what happens with the really old forests. Some of them grow their own laws of nature after long enough."

"What does that even..." Link stopped, remembering a certain forest temple he'd once stumbled through. "Right."

"Yeah, I..." Tatl paused. "'Right'? As in, 'right, I actually know what you're talking about Tatl'?"

Blurry shapes were coming into focus through the snow. Link could make out the outlines of mound-shaped buildings.

"That's the Goron village?" he said.

"That's the Goron village," nodded Tatl.

As they got closer Link was able to see them better. The village consisted of a number of large, round, cylindrical buildings made of rock – from where he was standing Link counted eight in all. Thin bridges ran nonsensically from roof to roof, spiralling down to the ground on occasion but without apparent pattern. The buildings, amazingly, all appeared to be part of the one hunk of stone, with not a seam or cut to be found. The Gorons must have carved the buildings directly out of the mountain face.

He kept walking, following the base of the nearest building around.

A few seconds later, he caught sight of the far end of the village, and came to an awed stop.

The village ended with a cliff, barred only a chest-height wooden railing. In the distance, miles and miles away, he could see the peaks of other mountains: thin spires of rock and ice. It was impossible to tell exactly how high up they were, as the view melted into clouds and snowy mist beneath the edge, but that, he realised, meant they were _above _the clouds. The view here would be amazing during the summer.

Of course, there were slightly more pressing issues.

"If this is the Goron village..." Link began.

"...then where are all the Gorons?" said Tatl. "Good question."

They stared at each other for a couple of seconds.

"Do you have any idea?" said Link.

"Nope." Tatl paused. "Well... there _is_ one over there."

She pointed.

Link turned. What he had taken to be a snow-covered chimney was actually a snow-covered Goron, standing on top of the largest building.

"But besides that?" continued Tatl. "No idea."

With a little trial and error Link found a path up to the top of the building. As he approached the Goron, he instinctively looked it up and down, finding nothing out of the ordinary.

Gorons vaguely resembled humans in shape, though with their legs disproportionately small and everything else disproportionately large. Their skin was an earthy, ochre tone which resembled stone. Their backs, short-spined like a floor of gravel; their frame, towering; their muscles, impressively bulky: all this made them formidable creatures. A Goron patriarch had once given Link a hug in thanks for a service rendered – the gesture of appreciation nearly killed him.

Link came to a stop a few feet away. The Goron still didn't seem to have noticed him, and Link didn't want to be standing too close in case the creature bashed his skull in in surprise.

"Hi," he said.

The Goron looked at him, round black eyes blinking.

"Well, there's a rare sight..." he said. "Hello to you, human. Are you... what brings you to..." His teeth chattered. "It's s-so cold..."

"Tell me about it," said Tatl, settling on Link's shoulder. "We're just here to have a chat with whoever's in charge."

"If that's okay," Link hastened to add.

It took the shivering Goron a few seconds to process this. "Ah... The elder is not here at the moment.... but you c-can... go inside the shrine..."

"What are _you _doing out here?" said Tatl.

"Are you a guard?" said Link.

"Gatekeeper..." the Goron said. He shivered. "B-being the gatekeeper in this cold is h-h-hard... Do you w-want to go inside?"

"Yes," said Link.

"All right. I'm going to open the door with a Goron Pound," said the gatekeeper. He turned his eyes towards the ground, staring at a spot on the snow with intense concentration.

"What's a Goron Pound?" said Link, but the gatekeeper didn't seem to hear.

Tatl looked thoughtful.

"Rings a bell..." she said.

Link looked back and saw the Goron gatekeeper crouching and leaping high into the air, arms and legs tucked together. The Goron slammed back into the ground with incredible force – the noise left Link's ears ringing; snow sprayed viciously from the point of impact.

The shock wave nearly knocked Link off his feet. He stumbled back a few steps before regaining his footing.

Hovering in the air, Tatl was unaffected.

"Ah, right," she mused. "The Goron Pound. They sort of jump up and slam back down really hard." She smirked. "It's surprisingly strong."

"I think I get the idea," said Link flatly.

There was a rumbling from beneath them.

"The gate is opening," said the Goron. "Get inside quickly... I d-don't want the cold air to spread..."

"All right," said Link.

He stepped to the edge of the roof, judging the distance to the ground: too far to safely jump. Instead, he started walking back down the way he had come.

"Thanks," he called over his shoulder.

"Yeah," added Tatl. "Don't... uh... don't freeze to death."

"I'll t-try not to..." said the gatekeeper glumly.

They made their way to the foot of the building, where a rectangular passage had appeared in the wall. Link was impressed with the stonework: he hadn't noticed anything before indicating the outline of a door.

They stepped inside, and Link's ears were immediately assaulted...

_WIIIIYAAAAAAH UIIAAAAAAAH WAAAAAAAAIIIAAAAH WAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIYAAAAAAH AAAAIIIIIUUUYAAAH_

...with a loud, shrieking sound that reverberated through the...

_AAAAH IIIIYAAAAAAAAH WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIH WAA IYAAAH _

...walls and the floor. He could swear his bones...

_WAAAAAAH UUWAAAAAAAH. Aaaah. Ah. Kff. Kff. WAAAAIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAYAAAAH IUUUAAAAAAH WAAAAH_

-were rattling with the noise.

Tatl was shouting something – Link couldn't hear her, but it looked like she was saying "wingshreds" over and over again. He clapped his hands to his ears, casting his eyes around.

Directly across from the entrance was a giant statue of a Goron head with a mane of thick hair and a welcoming smile. The floor was covered with coloured designs resembling clouds and rock formations and all other sorts of things Link didn't recognise.

It was definitely warmer inside, for whatever that was worth. Rings of torches lined the walls from the ground level all the way to the ceiling some fifty feet above. The walls on the inside were blue-brown, though the blue might have been a trick of the light – there was a definite layer of mist in here, and the walls and floor looked half frozen.

_WAAAAAAIIIIAAAAAAAH_

Tatl dived underneath Link's cap.

"What the hell is this racket!?" she shouted, her voice buzzing through his skull.

"I don't know!" he said. "Maybe... maybe..."

_UUIIIAAAAAAAAAAH WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH YAAAAAAAAAAUUUUWAAAAAAUUUH AAIIIH HAAAAA_

"Just do something about it!" shouted Tatl, pulling the folds of the cap in tighter around her. (And – Link winced – pulling some of his hair with it, too.)

He continued to cast his eyes around. At the top of the spiralling ramp, several storeys above, was a raised platform and a wide opening leading to a smaller chamber – the leader's chamber, perhaps, or perhaps a sacred place or treasury. A large stone chandelier hung from the ceiling, but it wasn't lit.

What really struck Link was the Gorons. A few stood guard near the door, but most were sitting slumped against the walls or huddled on the ground, legs tucked up to their chests. Their faces were numb, eyes staring out into space. They looked exhausted; miserable and exhausted.

It was completely wrong. Gorons were supposed to be a fiery, tempestuous lot, nothing like this. Were these Gorons naturally quieter than those in Hyrule? Or was it the wailing noise around them that had driven them to this state? Or, worse still, could Skull Kid somehow have–

"It's so cold out there," muttered the nearest Goron. "It's so loud in here. It's so cold out there and so loud in here and so cold out there and so loud in here." He turned, saw Link looking at him, and continued: "It's so cold out there and so loud in here and so cold out there and so loud in here and..."

Link shuddered. There was an edge of hysteria in the Goron's voice which in turn was setting him on edge.

_WAAAAAAAAH WIIIIAAAAAAAH UUUUUUUUIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAH IIAAAH_

There was something horrible about this, about the way all the Gorons seemed to radiate joylessness just by sitting there. It reminded him of... no, he didn't have to remember that.

"Excuse me!" Link said. He could barely hear his own voice above the din. He tried again, raising his voice to a half-shout: "Excuse me!"

The Goron who had been talking to himself stopped and blinked.

It was expecting him to say something, Link realised. He raised his voice again and shouted:

"We're looking for your leader!"

The Goron cupped a hand to his ear.

"We're looking for your leader!" he shouted again.

The Goron looked at him for a moment, brow furrowing. Then, he motioned towards the door.

Link got the idea. "Outside?"

The Goron nodded. It rapped on the door once, hard, and the slab of stone began to lift, propelled by some unseen mechanism.

With another wave of its hand, the Goron stepped outside. Link followed, and the door slid shut behind them, cutting off the noise.

"You made it stop?" said Tatl. She poked her head outside the cap. "Oh. That works too."

"What was that noise?" said Link. His ears were still ringing.

"That was the elder's baby son," said the Goron, rubbing his head.

"That was a _baby_?" said Link incredulously.

The Goron grimaced wearily. "Energetic little critter, isn't he? He's been crying non stop for over a week."

"Ouch," said Tatl. She extracted herself from Link's headwear and hovered in between him and the Goron. "So where's the elder? Is he in charge? We need to ask him about some magical giants."

The Goron regarded her blankly. "Giants? Like the faerie tales?"

"They're not _faerie_ tales!" Tatl glared at him. "They're just tales! That's bigotry, you know!"

"Calm down, Tatl," said Link, "he was just-"

"Oh, I'm calm," said Tatl, in a voice so sweet and pleasant Link thought she was being sarcastic. Looking at her, he realised she was sincere. Goddesses, the yellow faerie could switch moods at the drop of a pin...

The Goron coughed. "You were asking after the elder, yes? He left last week on a... well... maybe I should start from the beginning."

"What happened?" said Link.

"Spring was supposed to come, but instead a blizzard started. It became cold. Very cold. Many of us left the village to find some place warmer. Then the supply routes became blocked, and we have had very little trade since then. Our food supplies are running low."

"Mm," mused Tatl. "That's bad."

The Goron nodded. "Yes, very bad. The elder sent Darmani to follow the blizzard to its source and find out what was wrong."

"Darmani?" said Link.

"Darmani the Third was the greatest Goron warrior to ever live," said the Goron. "He once fought off two dozen Wolfos with his bare hands to save a lost youngling. He is– He was–"

The Goron broke off, looking agitated.

"What happened to him?" said Tatl.

The Goron stared at the ground. "When Darmani went out, he was only supposed to be gone for the day. After a week and no sign, the elder sent others out to look for him. They came back, and... well, the elder said... he said Darmani was dead."

The expression on the Goron's face was not so much mournful as grimacing. He took a deep breath, and went on.

"The elder left for Snowhead last week. He said he was going to finish what Darmani started. But now... now the elder hasn't come back either." The Goron looked up, meeting Link in the eyes. "We're worried."

Link spoke at once. "Maybe we could go there and bring him back-"

The Goron shook his head. "No. Snowhead is no place for humans. The path up there is so treacherous, even Darmani never took it unless he had to. You would never make it past the first chasm."

"Encouraging," remarked Tatl.

The Goron shrugged. "The elder was mad to attempt it alone."

"Is there anything we can do?" said Link. "Anything at all?"

"No. There's nothing you can do. If Darmani couldn't manage to..."

The Goron trailed off, looking thoughtful.

"What is it?" said Link.

"Well..." The Goron looked reluctant to speak at first, but after a few seconds he nodded to himself. "Well, since Darmani died, the blizzards and the cold have become much, much worse. Some of my brothers say..." He looked around, then lowered his voice. "They say it's because Darmani never got a proper burial. His body is still somewhere out there in the cold, and his spirit is angry. Very, very angry. While his spirit is still in this world, things will stay bad for us... don't you agree?"

Link and Tatl exchanged looks. If anyone was causing the Gorons' problems, Link was quite sure it was the Skull Kid, not some Goron ghost, who was responsible.

"Yes," said Link.

The Goron looked relieved. "Yes, I'm sure of it... Listen. Here is something you can do for us.

"Darmani's family has its own family shrine. His ancestors, they were all great Goron heroes too, you see. There is a human village further down the mountain – you would have passed through it to get here – the shrine is in a cave overlooking that village. Darmani's body... well, the elder said there's little hope of finding it in one piece. If you fall on your way to Snowhead, the peaks below are jagged, and you... well, giving Darmani a proper burial may be out of the question. But you could still mark a grave for him. Say the rites. Make things right.

"When you put Darmani to rest, then maybe the blizzard will stop. Then the elder will come back and he can stop his son crying and get things back to normal again. And help you," he added quickly. "Once the elder's back I'm sure he'll help you find what you're looking for."

Link glanced at Tatl.

The faerie shrugged and lowered her voice. "We may as well," she muttered. "Whatever we try next, we have to head that way. It'll be half an hour extra, tops."

"Okay," said Link. To the Goron: "We'll see what we can do."

"Thank you," the Goron replied. "And good luck."

**-oOo-**

As soon as they were out of earshot, Tatl turned to Link.

"Reckon there's anything in it?" she said.

"Maybe," said Link. He shrugged. "I think Skull Kid's behind this, but..."

"...but it can't hurt to see?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah," said Tatl. "I mean... you wasted a whole afternoon chasing monkeys, and that actually _led _somewhere, so... well, it can't hurt..."

"Yeah," said Link.

"Yeah," said Tatl.

They fell silent for a few minutes.

"Ever exorcised a ghost before?" Tatl asked.

"No," said Link.

Tatl nodded. "Neither."

Silence.

A smile appeared on Tatl's lips. "This could be interesting, then," she said.

* * *

**A/N:** Homework, assignments, reports, essays, problem sheets, tests, ad infinitum. My belated New Year's Resolution is to stop saying "I wasn't that happy with this chapter". Instead, I'm going to think more positive thoughts, such as, "Next chapter is gonna be awesome!". (Ooh, was that a spoiler? Maybe that was a spoiler.)

Speaking of awesome, thanks as always for being such awesome readers! I will really try to get this next chapter out 'on time'. Whatever that means. :P


	32. Exorcism

**INSOMNIA  
based on _The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask_**

At Tatl's insistence, they detoured via a Goron storage building first, and, after a quick chat with a sympathetic guard, borrowed some loincloths for Link to use as extra insulation from the cold. With this done, they were now heading back towards the human village, where the shrine to the Goron hero, Darmani, lay.

"Don't you think the Gorons are a bit superstitious?" said Tatl, breaking what had been a blissful silence. "Blaming blizzards on angry ghosts?"

"Ghosts _are _real," said Link. He'd seen his fair share.

"I know that, kid," said Tatl dryly, "I don't sleep through _all _the Great Faerie's lectures, just the ethics ones. But ghosts can't control the weather. It's obviously Skull Kid, Majora's Mask."

"I think so too," said Link. "But you can't blame the Gorons for being a bit..."

"...hysterical?" suggested Tatl. "But blaming things on angry ghosts... I mean, you heard that Goron. They think it's somehow their own fault! So they just get to sit around feeling bad because they _deserve_ it instead of, oh, I don't know, _getting anything done_..."

Link nodded. "We can't really change that," he said. "They're not going to just believe us if we tell them the winter has nothing to do with their dead warrior but some..." – he fished for words – "...some imp they've never heard of before."

Tatl shrugged. "Still."

"Still," echoed Link.

"Now we end up doing all the..."

She paused and snickered.

"What is it?" said Link.

"Nothing," said Tatl. "I was just wondering... Do you actually know how to exorcise a ghost?"

"No," said Link. He paused, trying to judge her tone of voice. "Do you?"

"Sure. You put a leash on it and go for a run."

Link blinked, trying to process this.

"Are you just joking around, or... oh, you meant _exercise_! Right!" Link laughed, shaking his head. "Sorry, I thought you said... The cold must be numbing my ears."

Tatl was silent.

"I don't think a leash would work, though," said Link. "All the ghosts I've ever seen could go through walls. You'd need to use magic of some sort to make it move."

Silence.

"Did I say something wrong?" said Link.

"Tell me something," said Tatl.

Link blinked. "Uh... okay?"

"When you were growing – that sounds _weird_, you're only ten – but were there, uh, a lot of other kids around?"

"Yes," said Link.

"Did they ever... you know..."

She waved her hands looked at him expectantly. He looked back, eyebrows raised.

"...make... fun of you?" the faerie finished.

Link shrugged. "Some of them," he said. "There was one guy who..."

He trailed off. Why exactly was he telling her this?

"Right, right," said Tatl quickly, "it's personal, I get that. But did they ever say why?"

"I'd rather not talk about..."

"But you were happy there?" interrupted Tatl.

Link didn't hesitate. "Yes."

"Uh-huh."

She looked as if she wanted to say something else, but she kept silent.

**-oOo-**

When the Goron told Link that their hero's shrine overlooked the village, he assumed it meant it was on some high hill with a winding, difficult trail up. No such luck. After a few minutes of scouting Tatl located the shrine entrance at the top of a cliff, surrounded on all sides by cliff walls, with the shrine itself carved into a cliff face. The way up was a series of handholds dug out of the rock, amounting to a three hundred foot vertical climb.

The handholds were, of course, frozen solid.

Link didn't see much of a choice. He climbed the whole way up, with his fingers freezing beneath the small comfort of the cloth strips he'd cut off as makeshift gloves, heaving and grunting and gasping for breath in the thin mountain air, while Tatl talked the entire time about how faeries didn't have to put up with this climbing nonsense because they had wings and how Link didn't know what he was missing out on.

"See?" the faerie chirped, as Link clambered over the top and lay on his back, seeing stars. "You're tired now. Meanwhile, I feel completely normal. So you tell me, who's got the better body here?"

After two minutes, no, maybe five, Link stood. A dark cave mouth to one side was the only way to go. A snow-obscured wooden sign besides it read 'Shrine'.

"I'm surprised you can still stand. If you were a faerie..."

"Please," he said, walking weakly inside, "just... don't."

Tatl smiled triumphantly. "So you admit it, then? You're jealous of us faeries and our perfectly honed biology?"

"Go away."

"Congratulations!" shouted Tatl, throwing her arms up in painfully overacted excitement. "You're the billionth person to say that to me! As our lucky winner you've been entered into our draw for a lifetime supply of swordfish eggs, just enter your... Oh, that's _much_ better."

The air had become noticeably warmer as they stepped into the cavern. Tatl breathed a contented sigh and flew further in, while Link stood where he was, taking the scene in slowly.

The shrine was the size of a small house. The ground was bare and earthen, interrupted only by a few shoulder-height stalagmites. Near the entrance, the wall was adorned with Goron tribal designs, but whoever had painted these in had given up about halfway around the cavern.

Everything was lit in strange, dancing purples and greens by an array of bright-glowing crystals. Their careful placement gently drew the eye towards a solitary gravestone standing in the centre of the cavern.

It was this Link now approached.

"'In memory, Darmani the Third, Goron Hero'," he read.

He laid a hand against the gravestone, letting his fingers brush across the engraved letters. Surprisingly, the stone was the warmest thing in the cave.

"They must have really liked the guy," said Tatl. "I had no idea Gorons made shrines for their dead."

"Isn't this supposed to be a family tomb?" said Link. "Where are the other graves?"

Tatl shrugged. "Maybe down the back?"

Link stepped past the gravestone and peered towards the far end of the shrine. It was obscured by shadow, but he was fairly certain there was nothing hiding over there. If the Gorons had buried anyone here, they hadn't left any markers. Perhaps Darmani the Third meant a lot more to them. Or perhaps gravestones were what the Gorons made do with when they couldn't have a burial.

"_**Thieves! Desecrators!**_"

Link jumped and turned to find himself looking into the eyes of an roaring adult Goron, one head-sized fist sweeping straight towards his face–

_you let your guard down why did you do that_, said the Kokiri boy

His initial split second of shock cost him dearly. He barely had time to throw his arms in the way, and a moment later the punch sailed straight through his guard, straight into Link's head and _out the other side _and he fell to the ground, landing hard on his back.

The part of his mind that dealt with combat was working at once, assessing the damage and the aggressor and, above all, the options, but there was a dulling thought, namely _did that Goron just __punch straight through my head?_. Of course, that couldn't be right: if the Goron's fist had gone straight through his head then where was the blood? Why wasn't he dead? But then Link had no way of explaining what he'd seen because there was no way that had missed.

All this whizzed through his thoughts at the speed of a life flashing before one's eyes, and then:

"We're not thieves!" he yelped, flipping onto to his feet with his shield raised. "We..."

To his surprise, the Goron had lowered its arms, its mouth hanging slightly open. It no longer looked murderous, just... perplexed.

"You... can see me?" the Goron said.

His heart still pounding, Link took a few steps back and took a better look at the new arrival. He had the massive frame of any adult Goron, but it was immediately clear that this was no typical rock eater. Instead of smooth rounded contours, his muscles were thick, toned and terrifically pronounced, almost leaping out of his skin. The thick metal gauntlets and shoes he wore only enhanced the impression of a indomitable machine. His skin was not an earthy brown but a lifeless gray; a white mane of hair ringed his face like the corona of an eclipse.

"Yeah, we can see you," said Tatl. "You should get a refund on the invisibility spell."

"Invisibility spell...? No, you don't understand." The Goron motioned around the shrine. "I am Darmani the Third. This is _my_ tomb."

"Darmani?" Link shook his head, confused. "I thought you were dead."

"I am," said Darmani.

There was a long pause as Link digested this.

"You're... a ghost?" he ventured.

"Looks like it," said Darmani gruffly. "Last thing I remember..."

"Don't be ridiculous," interrupted Tatl. "If you were a ghost, then your aura would be completely..." She squinted intently at the Goron for a few seconds, then blinked. "Huh. How about that. You're a ghost."

"You're really Darmani?" said Link. "The Goron hero?" (He felt a little strange saying that; he'd only first heard of him an hour ago.)

"What, you think I've nothing better to do than lie to you?" said Darmani.

Link shrugged and replaced his shield. "I suppose not."

"Good. Now who are you two and what are you doing in my family's shrine?" said Darmani.

"We're..."

Link looked to Tatl for help. The faerie was staring at the ceiling with sudden interest. With an inward sigh, Link turned back to Darmani.

"I'm Link, and that's Tatl," he said. "A Goron from the village told us to come here. He said you didn't get a proper burial–"

"Damn straight," nodded Darmani. "And if you're here to give me one, you can forget it. I saw my body. Wasn't a piece left bigger than your hands, human. Not a sight for the faint hearted."

"What happened?" said Link. "We were told..."

Darmani held up a hand. "Whatever you were told, forget it. I wasn't eaten by Wolfos or any stupid crock like that. I was fine until I marched off to Snowhead by myself, hoping I could drive off whatever demon was causing the blizzards. Then the blizzard at Snowhead blew me into the valley, and now... here I am."

"That sucks," muttered Tatl.

"It's _infuriating_!" growled Darmani, looking just about ready to punch a hole in someone. "Here I am, forced to watch as my village is slowly buried in ice. And now – who _are _you, anyway? How can you see me when nobody else can? What are you, death wizards? Necromancers?"

Tatl made an indignant noise. "I've have you _know_," she said, hands on hips, "that faeries are creatures of magic more than flesh. We can see all kinds of things you two-leggers can't. Don't even get me started on..."

Darmani ignored her. "Well?" he demanded of Link. "Can you use magic?"

"No," said Link.

"Ha. That mask, that blue thing on your belt; you think I can't sense the magic from that? I'm not stupid, boy."

"Oh, no," said Link, "no, it's not like that. The mask was-"

"Listen," said Darmani, his face growing solemn. "I beg of you. Bring me back to life."

Link gaped, unable to believe what he had just heard. "I... no! I can't do that! I'm not a magician or anything, I..."

Without using his legs, Darmani suddenly lunged towards Link until their faces were inches apart. "Bring me back to life," he repeated through gritted teeth.

With great effort Link suppressed his instinct to scream and faint.

Darmani snarled. "My people are dying out there in the cold, and you want me to just sit here? Bring me back, damn you, if not for me then for them. This winter, you think it's only going to hurt the Gorons? It will spread, further and further, to wherever you care about, and if you don't give me another shot at this there will be nothing to stop _everything_ from freezing over. Bring – me – back."

"I can't," said Link, pained. "I really-"

"I am _begging_ you," hissed Darmani. "What more do you want? A blood promise? Eternal servitude? Whatever your terms are, just give me another chance to save my people and _I accept them_, do you hear me?, I accept them..."

_He's hysterical_, Link thought. _He's not hearing a word I'm saying._

"You don't understand," he said, "I..."

"I have spent my life protecting my people," said Darmani, "and to be here like this, knowing I have failed, not being able to do a _thing_ to change it... don't presume to understand. I may have died, but I cannot rest. Now _give me another chance_. Whatever it takes, whatever penance I have to pay, I..."

"_I can't!_" shouted Link.

Link's words echoed across the chamber. The room was suddenly silent.

"I see..." muttered Darmani.

He turned and bowed his head.

Outside, the wind was blowing.

At long last, Darmani straightened up. He turned towards the cave entrance, all his menace melting away.

"I'm sorry," said Link. "It must hurt..."

"Don't patronise me," Darmani grumbled. "So you're not wizards or anything. You're just..." He looked at the two of them, as if only really noticing them for the first time. "A stray faerie–"

("_Stray_?" said Tatl.)

"–and a human carrying a _lot _of weaponry for his size. Nice bow, by the way." He looked between them, looking perplexed.

It occurred to Link what a strange pair he and Tatl must appear. "It's a long story," he said.

"But you can see me," said Darmani. "That has to mean something."

"We came here to..."

"...exorcise a ghost," said Tatl. "Your superstitious brothers – Are they actually your brothers? Or is that just like a thing you lot say? – thought you were responsible for the blizzard."

Darmani laughed bitterly. "Me? They think I'd turn against them in death?"

"Don't blame them for those thoughts," said Link. "They're cold and scared."

"I know," said Darmani. "I've seen them."

He looked away, thoughtful.

"To exorcise a ghost, you say?..." Darmani said after a pause. "Maybe that's it. Maybe you're here to give me some peace at last."

"Then that's what we'll do," said Tatl. She shot Link a look. "As soon as we work out how."

"Work out... how?" repeated Link.

"You heard me," said Tatl. "The gentleman over here wants your help. That's what you do, right? Help people? Stab monsters? Sometimes both at once? So just exorcise Darmani here and be done with it."

Most of the ghosts Link had ever encountered were malevolent beings who lingered within the walls of mouldy ruins, never quite dying. The only time he'd seen something resembling a ghost 'moving on' was when he managed to spring a trap on the phantom rider stalking him through the catacombs behind the sacred meadow, and its master had 'banished' it. In any case, this was quite different, and Link didn't know where to start.

"I'm not sure what to do," he admitted.

"Not sure?" echoed Darmani.

Tatl groaned. "Oh, for... You've only had the entire trip to think, Link."

"To be honest, I..." To be honest, he hadn't thought Darmani's ghost would actually be there.

Link trailed off. Darmani and Tatl were looking at him expectantly.

"You're the magic expert, Tatl," he said. "Do you..."

"He uses my name," gasped Tatl, clapping a hand to her chest. "This must be serious."

Darmani looked to Link. "You must know," he said. "You've gotta be here for a reason. Can't you do something?... Bring me peace... heal my soul..."

The words resonated with Link: _Heal my soul..._

Just like that, he knew what to do. He didn't have the slightest reason to think he was on the right track, but to some deep part of his mind it made such innate sense that his heart grew warm at the very thought.

He reached down and took his ocarina from his belt, taking care not to let it fall from his half-frozen hands.

"What _is _that?" said Darmani.

"It's an ocarina," said Link. "An instrument. It... I'm going to play something called the Song of Healing. It..."

Tatl snorted.

Link shot her a look. "What, you think it isn't–?"

"Oh, it's too poetic _not_ to work," she said, waving him away. "Carry on. I'll be right here."

"This song..." said Darmani. "Will it... heal my worries?"

"I think it will help you move on, yes," said Link. "I don't know for sure. But it feels right."

Darmani was quiet for a minute or two.

"I know gut feelings," he said. "You look wise enough. If you say it feels right, I'll bet it is."

Link nodded. "Okay. So then I'll..." He glanced at the ocarina.

"Play the damn thing already," grumbled Darmani. "If it doesn't work we'll know soon enough."

"Right," said Link.

He raised the ocarina to his lips and paused, picturing the notes. He had only played it once, and it had been quite a few days ago. Slowly, the notes came to him.

When Link was ready, he took a deep breath.

His eyes flicked tentatively towards Darmani.

The Goron nodded, his message clear: _Go on._

Link closed his eyes and began to play the Song of Healing, the solemn, steady melody he had learned beneath the shifting gears of the town clock tower. The first few notes wavered, but as he went on he relaxed into the music, until his reservations had drifted to the back of his mind.

As he moved into the next part of the song, the ocarina glowed warm in his hands. With surreal slowness, the dark grotto grew darker, light giving way to the melancholy of the music.

As everything else in the cave fell out of focus, Darmani seemed to become more real, the colour slowly returning to his body. His head was angled into the distance, squinting at blurry shapes that resembled other Gorons, hundreds of them. A great sadness clouded his face, and for a split second Link thought he understood how the dead warrior felt. Then a small smile broke through the thin lines of Darmani's face, and everything was inscrutable again.

Momentarily, Darmani turned to face Link.

"It is time for me to leave this world," he said. "But my work is not done. My people are still cold and miserable. My duty to them now passes to you, child. Someone has to go to Snowhead and set things right. Will you do it?"

Link was dimly aware of the real world, where his hands and lips delicately played the ocarina.

"Yes," he said.

Satisfied, Darmani nodded. "I thought so. I may only have just met you, but already I can tell you have the heart of a warrior."

_The heart of a warrior?_ What exactly did that mean?, Link wondered. That he was willing to kill? That he was willing to sacrifice his own happiness for others? It was the same as the empty platitudes that he'd gotten when the Seven Years War had ended, the glowing words the King had spoken to Link as if he was imparting some great wisdom.

Darmani seemed to sense the trouble in Link's face. "Don't look so troubled. I only meant you remind me of myself and my ancestors. We all had hearts of rock: heavy and unyielding."

The notes of the Song of Healing continued to echo in the empty space around them.

"What do I do at Snowhead?" said Link.

"I do not know," said Darmani. "But be prepared for a fight. Arm yourself to the teeth. The true warrior is always prepared. But you already knew that, didn't you? The _real _question is how you get to Snowhead in the first place. You are only human. And that's not going to cut it."

"Then how?"

"I will lend you my strength," said Darmani. "The strength of a Goron warrior. After that... well, we'll see."

The music swelled and Darmani cast his eyes over his shoulders.

"It is time," the great Goron said.

He turned and began to walk into the darkness.

Link watched silently after him.

At the last moment, Darmani turned, and, like a salute, clenched one fist and struck it against his chest. It resonated like stone on stone.

Automatically, Link did the same.

Darmani smiled, turned around, and disappeared into–

_CLANG!_

With a start, Link opened his eyes and found himself in the real world. The cave was still dim and cold. Tatl was still hovering nearby. Darmani was gone.

"Ah!" gasped Tatl. Her hands were clapped over her face; she sounded dazed. "That... that..."

"Are you okay?" said Link.

"Have you ever been stabbed in the eye while staring directly into the sun?" said Tatl, her voice strained.

Link blinked. "Uh..."

"No? Then shut up and give me a wingshredding second." She doubled over, wings beating at half speed.

"What happened?"

"I said shut up..." Tatl dropped to the ground, landing unsteadily on her feet. "The Goron's aura just exploded."

Link dropped to his knees, leaning towards her. "Exploded? Are you going to be okay?"

"It's fine," she muttered. She removed her hands from her face, winced, and screwed her eyes shut. "Not permanent. Just... imagine being made almost entirely of magic, right? Or... no, say it's water. Your body is full of water, right, and it's like there was a giant explosion of water a mile away and it made all of the water in your body go all... _bubbly _especially in your eyes because you were looking right _at _the damn thing and..." She coughed, opened her eyes again, and grimaced. "Wingshreds. That's good enough."

"Are you sure you're going to be okay?" said Link.

"I will if you change the godforsaken subject," snapped Tatl. "You want to tell me what exactly happened when you played your ocarina?"

"He..." Link paused, remembering. "He asked me to go to Snowhead, and... fight... something."

"May as well," said Tatl. "The more I hear about this place, the more it sounds like somewhere where we can find our next giant."

Link nodded. "I agree. Darmani also said he'd lend us his strength, but I'm not sure what..."

"Ah," said Tatl. "Then you probably haven't noticed that." She pointed behind Link.

In the spot where Darmani's ghost had last floated, something small and rounded lay on the ground. It was a mask, Link realised with a sinking feeling in his gut. A round brown mask with the face of a Goron.

"Is that...?" said Link.

"Yeah," said Tatl. "It's exactly what you think it is."

Link moved towards the mask and lifted it gingerly in one hand. It was cold to the touch and had the smooth feel of chiseled stone.

"It has a soul in it?" he said. "Darmani's soul?"

"No, not his _soul_," laughed Tatl. "I was wrong about that, there's no way his soul could be hanging around after what just happened. I think what's in these masks is more like people's, uh, life essences."

Link looked at her quizzically.

"It's like a soul," she clarified, "just... not."

"I see," said Link.

"Yep," said Tatl. "But yeah, I'm no expert but it looks like exactly the same sort of thing as your Deku mask."

"So if I put it on...?"

"Then... well, yeah. You turn into a Goron. Probably."

"Probably?" said Link.

"Well, even if the magic works properly, there's a chance that..." She trailed off.

"A chance that what?"

"Oh, nothing to worry about," said Tatl, which only made Link extremely worried.

"What is it?" he said.

"Nothing's going to happen," said Tatl with maddening calm. "Put it on."

Link grimaced and returned his attention to the mask. "Okay."

Silence.

Link lifted the mask and brought it up to his face. He paused with it just inches away.

"Well?" said Tatl.

Its inside was smooth and chiselled like a stone bowl. It looked benign. But so had the Deku mask and he'd spent days trapped like that...

_It's a bad idea_, said the Kokiri boy. _You know it's a bad idea._

"Here goes," said Link, and he pressed the mask against his face.

The instant the cool stone surface touched his flesh he could already hear himself screaming. A split second later and he became aware of the pain, pain, _pain, pain_, _PAIN!_ His head felt like it was about to implode; his skin felt like it was melting; every muscle in his body cramped at once and an incredible tightness constricted his chest. He was sure he was screaming but his voice was so distant, the pain_ pain PAIN_ was everywhere at once, it was inside his veins, his head felt heavy, the agony, the agony, the–

Disoriented, he lost his footing and fell–

A crash. Sinking. Pain. His head. His _everything_. Pain. Muscles seizing, rigid. Darkness. Pain. Darkness. Darkness.

Darkness...

**-oOo-**

Link came to with his ears ringing.

Cold. Something cold against his face. He was... he was lying face first on the ground. He tried to get up, but his arms felt sluggish and the moment he moved his head a wave of dizziness rushed over him.

"Unh," he groaned.

Something was wrong. He could barely move. Had he been poisoned?

"Oh, you're awake. _Finally_."

It took Link a few seconds to recognise the voice as Tatl's. It sounded strange. Off. He couldn't quite explain how. It was like the little faerie's voice was resonating differently, not lower or deeper but... fuller.

"What... happened?" he said. His tongue felt numb. Everything felt numb.

He tried to move again and immediately regretted it as another wave of dizziness swelled up.

"What happened?" There was a brief sparkle of yellow – Tatl was in front of him. "Let me see. This evil mask turned my best friend evil, now he's trying to destroy Termina, and all that..."

In his groggy state, it took Link a few seconds to fully process what she was saying. "Who...?"

"Oh, wow," said Tatl. "You really _are_ out of it, aren't you?" She sighed. "Figures. You _have_ been out for nearly an hour."

"An _hour_?"

Link scrambled up to his knees and _oh Din his head_ it felt as if it were about to collapse under its own weight, and a second later he was back face-first on the ground and everything felt like it was made of lead–

"Hey! Hey! Easy, boy!"

Yellow again. Tatl was hovering in front of him, but she was blurry, impossibly close. That couldn't be right. There was something wrong with...

"My eyes," Link managed. His throat felt swollen – his voice was coming out far too low. It was a struggle to speak.

"Your eyes are fine," said Tatl. "They're a foot further apart than they used to be, but otherwise they're fine." She paused. "I think."

She moved back, and Link's eyes managed to focus in on her. She was watching him intently, with the same fascination of a small child prodding at a beetle.

"What... happ–"

"You remember Darmani's ghost?" said Tatl. "Healing him? The mask he left behind?"

_Mask?_

It all came flooding back to him. The blizzard, Darmani, the Song of Healing...

"I put on the mask," said Link. Then, following the train of thought to its obvious conclusion: "It worked. I'm a Goron."

"You don't say," said Tatl dryly.

Link tried to move. Again, his body refused to budge: it was like shifting boulders.

"I can barely move," he grunted. "Everything is heavier..."

"Just push harder."

Link's palms were splayed across the ground, his triceps straining to lift his weight. "I'm pushing as hard as I can," he groaned.

"No, you're pushing as hard as a _human_ can," said Tatl. "Push harder."

He tried pushing harder, but nothing was happening, all he could feel were his muscles burning. Then suddenly, just like that, he found himself pushing even harder, harder than his brain was telling him to be physically possible, and suddenly he was up off the ground and all the weight was on his legs. He staggered for a second, but an unfamiliar sense of instinct kicked in and suddenly his legs were doing it too, tensing and straightening, supporting a weight many times greater than what they were supposed to.

"Woah," he said, holding his hands out to steady himself. "Woah. That's..."

"Weird?" ventured Tatl. "Different? I wouldn't be so surprised. You _are_ a Goron now."

Link looked down at himself, mentally adjusting to the idea. True enough, his entire body was now the earthy-brown colour of the Goron race. His arms and legs were well-toned like Darmani's had been...

_Well, of course they're like Darmani's_, he realised, _this is Darmani's body_.

Tatl coughed. "When you're done checking yourself out, want to head outside?"

"Right," said Link, snapping out of his reverie.

He took a step towards the door, feeling a little surprised at how heavy everything seemed. This was going to take a little getting used to.

* * *

**A/N:** Okay, that's the last time I promise to have a chapter up 'soon'. Evidently someone has placed an Irony Hex on me. We shall not speak of this again. (But to all zero of you who were wondering what happened to me - real life can be painfully busy sometimes.)

It's been so long; I would love to hear your thoughts. (Like, well, always. But, like, it's been so long. Like, that makes it, like, more, like, important. Like.) I was really happy with how this chapter turned out, for what it's worth. :)

-tiki


	33. Winter Night part 1

**INSOMNIA  
****based on _The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask_**

Night had fallen–

**CYCLE 2: HYSTERIA  
NIGHT of the FIRST DAY**

–by the time Link and Tatl stumbled outside. They stopped at the edge of the plateau overlooking the human village, where one could see all the neat rows of houses from whose windows no light glowed and from whose chimney no smoke fumed.

"Well, this is exciting," said Tatl.

As usual, Link couldn't decide if she was being sarcastic or not.

"What's exciting?" he said.

"How does it feel to be a walking talking rock?"

Only having been conscious for five minutes since the transformation, Link was still having trouble getting used to having a Goron body. Everything was thicker and heavier, and every step was a gruelling effort, and yet at the same time he could a stony strength in all his muscles, just waiting to be unbridled. At least he could walk without losing his balance, now.

"I feel weird," Link said.

Tatl nodded, then caught herself and shot Link a look. "Weird. You feel _weird_. You're twice your size and a billion times heavier and that's all you can think to say about it?"

"Well, yes-"

"Well, _no_. You're not getting away with that. You can't just be all 'oh, I'm a different freaking _species_, but hey, that happens to me all the time, big deal'. Freak out a little bit. Panic. Entertain me."

Link was panicking plenty, but he didn't mention that. Instead, he stared down into the empty village, feeling the strange new weight of his body around him.

"I can't feel the cold at all," he observed. "I don't know what the Gorons in the village were complaining about."

Tatl settled on Link's shoulder, uncomfortably close to his ear. "But do you feel anything?" she said.

"Yes," said Link, "a little bit, but it's really not that bad."

"Well, maybe it seems really bad to them," said Tatl.

"What do you mean?" said Link.

"Well..." Tatl yawned and stretched. "Everything is relative, you know? If you go around getting stabbed in the arm every day, I doubt you'd notice a splinter if you got one. Maybe Gorons don't feel much pain normally..."

He couldn't be sure, but for the briefest of moments Link thought he saw something moving in the corner of his eye. He looked down into the village, but by the time his eyes refocused everything was still again.

It was probably nothing... but that part of his mind which had kept him alive through the Seven Years War was now on edge. He couldn't see perfectly with these Goron eyes; everything was still a little bit blurry like he was viewing the world through a pane of glass just beginning to fog up. Were those shadows _really _just shadows?

"...after all, they're basically made of rock," Tatl was saying. "Their sense of pain would be nothing like yours or mine. Think about it. Would they really be able to carve out caves with their fists if it hurt every time they punched through solid rock?"

"Tatl," interrupted Link, "can you see anything moving down there?"

"What, in the village?"

The faerie turned her head and cast her eyes into the village, brow furrowed. She remained motionless (save her hovering wings) for a few minutes.

"No," she said. "Why, did you see something?"

"I'm not sure," said Link.

Tatl kept looking for a few seconds, then shrugged, settling onto Link's shoulder. "It's probably nothing."

Their vantage point gave them an unobstructed view not only of the human village, but of the night time sky above. And where there was open sky, there was the moon. He'd spent a while now in Termina now – a week, he realised; that seemed impossibly long – and still the moon scared him every time he looked at it. It wasn't just the threat of its descent or the grotesqueness of its face... there was something else to it, something Link couldn't quite put his finger on, a slowly dawning sense of horror which extended far beyond the fear of death.

"Anyway," said Tatl, "I reckon I'm right."

"About what?" said Link.

"Goron pain threshold. You see..." Tatl snickered. "How do I put this. Uh. I stuck a needle in your neck a few minutes ago and you still haven't noticed."

"You _what!_"

Link spun and made a grab for Tatl but the faerie had already lifted off, hovering well above Link's head, waving something thin and metallic around.

"You stuck a needle in-"

Tatl laughed him off. "See? Being a Goron is great for you. You don't have to worry about little things like cuts and scrapes now."

"You stuck a needle in my neck!" said Link.

"And no harm done! Isn't that awesome?"

"_You stuck a needle in my neck!_"

"See, this is the thing with you," said Tatl. "You get so obsessed over the little things. Lighten up."

Sometimes Link understood Tatl. This was not one of those times.

"You stuck... you... you stabbed... you... you're mad," he said.

"Yup," said Tatl brightly. "And you're boring."

The obvious next thing to do was to get back down to the village. Link peered over the cliff edge, sighting the handholds that he'd used to climb up. Carefully, still not used to the weight of this body, he knelt, turned around, and swung his legs over the ledge.

He shifted his weight onto his feet, making sure the handholds could take his weight, and began to climb down nervously.

"So when you 'healed' Darmani..." said Tatl.

"Don't distract me," said Link through gritted teeth.

Tatl looked miffed. "Fine. But hurry up."

On the one hand, the freezing cold was no longer a distraction. On the other hand, it was impossible to get a secure grip on the handholds with these larger, clumsier hands. And he could swear he felt the rock moving every time he shifted his weight.

"You okay there?" said Tatl.

"I think so," said Link.

"Because you're a lot heavier now, I don't know if it can take your weight-"

"I'm being careful," said Link, and then his handholds snapped.

With nothing supporting his upper body he slipped easily from the cliff face and began to fall. Instinct and experience kicked in and his hands shot out, grabbing onto another faint crevice in the rock. But with his newly added weight the momentum was too much, and as more stone snapped icily from the cliff face, Link continued to tumble down and then it was all out of reach.

In the three seconds or so it took for him to fall, Link screamed.

It sounded like this: "_Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa_-"

A detached part of his mind was surprised at how deep his voice sounded, now-

_Whumph._

**-oOo-**

"You okay there?" said Tatl.

"No," said Link.

"Thought not," said Tatl.

The snow had cushioned Link's fall. He lay in a newly formed crater, a five foot depression of slush, staring straight up at the moon and stars.

Strangely, he had barely felt a thing on impact. This body was... well, not quite impervious to pain, but removed enough from it that it was barely a concern. No cold, no stinging from cuts, now no fractured bones. The only problem Link was having right now was that his ears were ringing. That was one thing he was beginning to hate about Goron form – there was a perpetual dull headache he couldn't quite shake. Everything felt so very, very heavy, especially his head.

"So," said Tatl. "Planning on getting up?"

"In a moment," said Link, exhausted.

He tried to push himself up but only succeeded in digging his arms deeper into the snow. He tried again more cautiously, but with similar results: the thick-packed powder parted like water with his every movement.

"This isn't working," he said. "I'm too heavy."

"Huh." Tatl frowned. "Maybe you could do a Goron roll?"

Link blinked, confused. "A...?"

"You know, that thing Gorons do where they curl up tight and roll along their spines." She somersaulted a few times, pantomiming. "Like that?"

"Um..." said Link. He had seen Gorons moving around like that – tucked into a ball, they were capable of moving much faster than they were on two feet. But he didn't see how that would help him here. What he needed to get out of this snow pit was traction, not speed.

"At least give it a shot," said Tatl.

Link sighed inwardly. It was hardly like he had any better ideas.

"Sure," he said. He tucked his arms and legs into his chest.

A few seconds passed as he tried to determine what to do next.

He shifted his weight back and swung forward violently, trying to move into a roll. But he didn't have the momentum he needed to complete the motion and flopped back the other way. Sighing, he tried again, with similar results.

He was fairly sure that he had sunk even deeper into the snow doing that.

"I think you're supposed to roll?" suggested Tatl, in a tone of voice that could have passed for helpful.

"I'm trying," said Link through gritted teeth.

Tatl blinked and was silent for a few seconds.

"Huh," she said, sounding surprised.

"What?" said Link.

"That woman was right. You _do_ have an accent."

"What woman... an accent?"

"Anju. Bleeding heart at the inn. And... an accent. You know, when people talk funny."

"I know what an accent is," grumbled Link, rocking forward again. "I don't have one."

"You do," said Tatl. "It's not very strong, but it's much more obvious now that your voice is all deep."

Link fell back with a sigh. "This isn't working. Any other ideas?"

"Like before. You were all, '_t_-rying'. And then '_ah_-ccent'. It's..."

"_Tatl_. Any other ideas?"

Tatl seemed to jolt in shock. She looked around wildly then turned her attention to Link.

"You never use my name," she said.

_Don't I?_, thought Link.

"Oh," he managed. "Sorry?"

"Doesn't matter." Tatl looked him up and down. "Okay, maybe... maybe take off that Goron mask?"

Link paused, considering. "Turn back human?"

"Well, you know. If you were lighter you might be able to climb out without digging yourself into a deeper hole. So to speak. Literally."

Careful not to disrupt the sides of the pit any further, Link raised his arms to the side of his head. These fingers were not so sensitive and at first he didn't feel the tiny groove running past his jaw. He found it at last, more by sound than by touch, dug his fingers in and pulled.

There was a moment of disorientation. Link blinked and he was human again.

The cold hit him all at once, soaking through his tunic and lashing at his skin.

Shuddering with adrenaline, Link raised himself to his feet and winced as snow trickled into his boots. The edge of the pit was only a little above head height, and he raised his arms to it, slowly spreading weight across it, seeing if it would hold.

It didn't. After a few seconds the section Link had been reaching for crumbled away, and in his haste to recover his balance his feet stuck in the snow and he landed on his behind.

"Still can't..." muttered Link.

Tatl frowned. "Well, this sucks."

Link's teeth chattered.

"I'm out of ideas," said Tatl with a grimace. "Want me to go look for help?"

"Village's empty," gasped Link. He drew in a deep breath and his lungs were seared with cold.

"Oh, right..."

Link couldn't help shivering. The snow was falling thickly in the darkness; he could feel its tiny pinpricks alighting on his face.

"This would be a really lame way to die," mused Tatl.

"Oh, wait, wait," said Link, an idea striking him. He fumbled for his belt, his fingers tracing numbly against the various odds and ends he had stowed by his waist.

"What are you...?" said Tatl.

"Still too heavy," he muttered. His hands found what he was looking for and he brought the Deku mask to his face, dragging a fistful of snow with it-

_-pain, plants growing into his skin, starting as stalks and shoots and expanding and pain, hurt, and into tendrils and branches and tree trunks and pain, agony, and entire forests growing inside his skin and-_

Link opened his eyes, the familiar feeling of woodenness enveloping him.

"Pretty smart for a human," said Tatl's voice from overhead. "Can you climb out now?"

Her voice was so soft and soothing, like another voice he'd once known but couldn't quite place. Faeries could be such lyrical creatures. The subtle ring of magic beneath her voice was almost like a lullaby. An incredible tiredness washed over him.

"Uh... Deku boy? You okay there?"

The icy cold of the snow was gone now, replaced entirely with a soft soothing feeling of content. He ought to climb out now, Link thought, he ought to... but then how long had it been since he'd last slept properly, it felt like forever, too long, and here he was blanketed by snow and it was comfortable and white and endless...

"Are you... oh. Oh, man... okay, snap out of it. Link. Listen to me. It's gotta be a Deku scrub thing."

_Deku scrub...?_ He managed a tired squeak.

"If you don't get moving right now the cold is going to knock you out." She smacked him on the head. "Do you hear me? _Move_!"

Move, thought Link, move, move, move...

He stumbled to his feet and regretted it immediately. Being upright made the tiredness feel twice as bad. He felt as if he could collapse at a moment's notice.

He swayed on the spot, trying to remember what he had been thinking about.

Tatl was suddenly in front of his face, bright and yellow and only making it harder to sleep, to relax, to...

"I'm doing this as a friend," she said, and punched him in the eye.

If Link had been human, he would have yelled in pain. Instead what came out was a high-pitched wooden squeal that sounded like a cross between a terrible flautist and a puppy's bark. His hands shot to his face, his combat reflexes almost whirring to life then fading away again, leaving nothing but a momentary surge of adrenaline.

"Now _move_!"

One hand clutching his eye, he took a running start and darted up the edge of the pit. The soft snow walling the pit barely shifted with his movements, as if he were just a handful of falling twigs and leaves. What felt like a moment later he was back on flat ground, the human village just visible in front of him. Another wave of tired dizziness rolled over him and...

"Mask off!" yelled Tatl, hovering so close to Link's ear that he nearly fell over from shock. "Right now!"

Link's dulled mind didn't so much process the instruction as pass it straight on to his body uncritically. With heavy eyelids, his hands found the edges of the mask against his jawline and pulled.

There was a moment of complete disorientation and then Link was human again, freezing and awake.

"What was..." – he inhaled a mouthful of snow, coughed, tried again – "what just..."

"Are you okay?" said Tatl. "You looked like you were going to..."

"I'm fine," said Link, shuddering and folding his arms in tight, "I'm fine, what was that?"

"I have no idea," said Tatl. "You tell me. Are you _sure_ you're okay?"

"I'm fine. I was... I don't know, tired. As soon as I put the mask on."

Tatl exhaled grimly. "Well, just don't go putting the Deku mask on again. At least not until we work out what the hell that was."

Link turned this over in his head – which was no mean feat when the snow seemed to be coming down thicker than ever before and every flake on his exposed skin was a bee's sting – the Goron mask, the Deku mask, pain, tiredness. It just didn't

_it's so cold_, said the Kokiri boy, _remember seeing those fish people freeze to death, it was so cold and they couldn't move and then they didn't want to move and then they just_

make sense, but then maybe he wasn't in the right frame of mind to be thinking about magic and the fine details of inhabiting different bodies. He needed to find somewhere warm.

"Are there... Do Deku scrubs get sick during the winter?"

"How'd I know? I've never seen them this far north. They're plants, remember, they like sunshine and rain..." Tatl shrugged. "At least you're out now." She motioned towards the hole.

Link spared it a glance. In the moonlight the Goron-shaped depression in the ground looked innocuous, like just another shadow.

They trudged through the snow for a while.

"Where are we going?" said Tatl.

"Um..." Link shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. "Somewhere warm. We'll work out what to do next... Maybe a cave, or..."

Tatl looked dubious. "Didn't that Darmani guy give you any hints?"

"Snowhead," said Link, remembering. "It wasn't really a hint, he asked me to go there to finish what he started, as a personal favour, but that's where we were going anyway, wasn't it?"

"Was it?" said Tatl. She shrugged. "I guess. I mean, if all the cold weather and bad stuff is coming from there, chances are we'll find more of Skull Kid's handiwork... is that a person?"

"What?" said Link, looking around. Everything more than a few feet away looked the same with the snow obscuring his vision.

"Over there," said Tatl, pointing. "That way."

"Are you..." Link cut himself off before he could say '_sure?_'. Tatl was a faerie, and though she might not have had the moral fibre or the attention span that Navi had, Link wasn't about to dispute the sharpness of her senses.

Link turned and headed in the direction she'd pointed, walking a little faster than before, until a slow-moving figure became visible in the darkness.

It was a Goron, made nearly unrecognisable by the ice and sleet that covered him. His head was hunched; his limbs withered and weak. Every bone in his ribcage was visible. A mop of white hair (or perhaps silver and covered in snow) obscured his face. He took tiny, shuffling steps through the snow, moving with glacial slowness. Link suspected this was the Goron elder they'd been told about, the one who had left the Goron village by himself to confront whatever lay at Snowhead.

Tatl glanced at Link. "That Goron looks like he's been out here for ages."

"Excuse me," said Link, then, when no response was to be had, "Excuse me!"

The Goron elder turned and seemed to notice him. His lips opened, quivered, then closed silently.

"Are you okay?" said Link, taking a few steps closer.

The elder shuddered on the spot then turned his head to stare vacantly into the distance.

"We need to get him somewhere warm," said Link.

"Damn straight," said Tatl, and, without missing a beat, "The nearest house is a couple hundred feet that way. It's our best bet."

Link nodded. "Come on," he said to the Goron, "this way..."

The old Goron shivered, not seeming to hear.

Link placed one hand on the Goron's back – wincing, it was _freezing _to the touch, who knows how long he'd been out in this cold – and motioned towards the houses in the village.

The Goron looked at him, blinking a few times, and slowly turned in the right direction.

Link stepped by the Goron's side, reaching over and supporting one arm – which turned out to weigh like bricks; the feeble old creature wasn't as light as he looked. With Link's help, the Goron hobbled forwards, step by step.

They made slow progress through the snow. Where they were standing the moon's crimson glow appeared to be at its strongest, lighting the ground like a spectre of death.

"Won't the house be locked?" said Link. The ice collecting on the old Goron's back stung at his hands with each little movement; it was taking all his self control not to pull it away and upset the Goron's balance.

"Yup. We'll have to break in," said Tatl.

"_What_?"

Tatl smiled innocently. "It's for a good cause... And," she added, before Link could utter further protests, "we're not stealing or anything, we just need somewhere warm for a few hours. It's not that bad, really."

Without warning, the Goron elder slumped to the ground, sending up a silent cloud of snow.

"Whoa!" said Link, trying for a second to keep his grip on the elder's arm then giving up as the weight became too much for him.

Tatl was at the elder's side first.

"He's alive," she said, staring straight through the Goron.

"Unconscious?"

"No idea. His aura is weak, though. Very weak. He needs to get inside now."

Link reached underneath the elder's shoulders. He tugged, but even at his size the old Goron was immovable. "He's too heavy."

"Goron mask, stupid," said Tatl.

"Right." Link paused – the last time he'd put that mask on, it had knocked him out. "Um... last time..."

"Just don't fall over," said Tatl, rolling her eyes. "Think you can manage that?"

Link ducked his head as another gust of snow battered past. "I'll try..."

Still kneeling, he brought his hands to his belt, feeling for the rounded stone surface of the Goron mask. He lifted it to head height, gritted his teeth, and pressed it against his skin at which point the world flashed white with pain, his blood turning to lead and dragging him down, searing through him with agonising slowness. He swayed for a moment but kept his balance; he could feel his skin turning to stone, every tiny hair on his body calcifying, the pain so incredible that for a moment he thought he was dying...

Everything cleared.

Link paused, taking stock. His eyes were again larger and slightly unfocused. He looked down to see his fingers now thick, muscular and the colour of earth; a rough gravel-like patch on the back of his hands where one would find hair on a human man; metal gauntlets circling the length of his forearms.

"Not dead?" said Tatl.

"Not dead," said Link.

He reached under the Goron elder again and tensed, willing his muscles to work a dozen times harder than felt possible, until suddenly, effortlessly, he was pulling the older Goron from the ground into a sitting position.

"You got that?" said Tatl.

"Yeah... I..." Link grunted with the effort, then suddenly realised he was breathing normally. Ten years of humanity had his expecting to be short of breath, but the Goron body was coping with the extra strain like he was lifting paperweights. "I'm fine," he said, bemused. "This feels really easy."

"Great. Reckon you can get him onto his feet? Drag him there?"

The snow wailing all around him was a nuisance: background noise. The instincts of the Goron body stirred, and a feeling of disproportionate confidence overcame Link.

"I think I can do better," he said.

Widening his stance and the position of his hands underneath the elder, Link slowly rose to his feet, lifting the unconscious Goron from the ground. With one fluid movement he had the Goron elder slung over his shoulder.

For a second or two his human preconceptions warred with his Goron instincts: the former warning_ this is heavy, it hurts to lift, you're straining from the effort_; the latter completing the connection of mind to body and supporting the older Goron's full body weight with little more than a few deep breaths. Eventually the 'human' side gave up from confusion.

Link was oddly curious. "Tatl, do I look like I'm carrying something heavy?"

"Can't you tell?" said Tatl. "I mean... what do you mean?"

"Am I shaking? Do I look like I'm in pain?"

"No and no. You're... I mean, you're in Darmani's body, right, and even for a Goron he was pretty ripped. I don't think you're going to strain anything carrying one old dude. Why do you ask? Something feel wrong?"

Link frowned. "I'm not really feeling anything at all."

Tatl looked thoughtful. "Huh. Well, maybe it's just a Goron thing. We can worry about that later. Let's get this fellow inside before he freezes to death..."

Taking slow, heavy steps (which seemed to be a feature of this body, carrying someone or not), Link made a beeline to the nearest house, supporting the Goron elder's weight with one shoulder. His footsteps were deep and silent in the night.

The house Tatl had pointed him to slowly gained definition as he walked, going from an indiscernible blob of shadow to a sharp rectangular object interrupting the natural fall of the snow.

He stopped as he reached the snowed-over doorstep, inspecting the doorknob and lock, which now seemed a lot lower than normal.

"Do you still have that needle? I need to..." Link paused. This body was too insensitive, too indelicate. It was bad enough as a _human _in this cold, but there was no way he was going to be able to manipulate the locks when he couldn't even register the pick in his hands.

"I'm going to have to put him down..." he began.

Tatl made an exasperated noise. "Link, you're a _Goron_ right now. A really strong one, too. You could probably punch through the bricks if you wanted to. Break down the door."

Link was aghast. Breaking into innocent people's property was bad enough; seriously damaging it was going a little too far for his tastes. "You don't seriously expect-"

"Oh, come on. This guy here might be dying." Tatl stared him down. "The house probably belongs to some rich snob who uses it two days a year. What's it going to be, your goody two-shoes altruism, or your goody two-shoes altruism?"

Link took a few deep breaths. This was ridiculous.

"Break it," sang Tatl sweetly.

"Fine," snapped Link.

He laid his free hand flat against the side of the door, and pressed gently-

_Crack. _The door cracked in a neat semicircle around the lock, its remainder swinging open at the hinges. The wind and the snow did the rest, blowing the door wide open and peppering the floor inside with quickly melting white.

(Maybe he hadn't pushed as gently as he'd thought, then.)

As he stepped inside Link's eyes automatically scanned the interior of the house: modest furnishings, high ceilings, narrow passageways. In this immediate room, a Wolfos pelt rug and, more importantly, a fireplace in the corner.

The yellow faerie at his shoulder was already giving instructions:

"Okay. Good. Put him down carefully. And close the door, don't let all the cold get in. See if you can get a fire started. I'll... I'll..." Tatl waved her arms around. "Ah, hell, I'm the faerie here. I do the thinking, not the grunt work."

Link gently lowered the Goron elder onto his back a few feet away from the fireplace. The old man was still breathing. That was good; Link was no healer but he had a feeling this one would make it.

He turned and began to investigate the fireplace.

* * *

**A/N:** Observe that, like the Goron elder, I'm not dead despite how it may appear. It's like a self-insert! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

Sometimes I crack myself up.

(omg nearly four months _what is this_)


	34. Winter Night part 2

**INSOMNIA  
based on _The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask_**

In these pre-dawn hours the windows glowed softly of indigo, the howling snow hidden safely away behind them. The logs in the fireplace glowered weakly, emanating with the barest wisp of warm air.

Link and Tatl watched over the old Goron where he lay by the fireside. The patches of ice covering his body slowly melted in the weak heat, dripping unceremoniously to the thick carpet where it stunk of damp.

Though unconscious, the Goron elder's body shuddered ceaselessly from the cold, never his whole body at once but instead a head, a finger, a leg at a time.

"Poor thing," said Tatl.

"Do you think he'll make it?" said Link.

"Yeah, he'll... well..." Tatl shrugged. "I'd say Gorons are a tough lot, but this guy is _old_. Look how weak he looks. And goodness knows how long he's been out in the cold."

"So he..."

"He'll be fine. Don't sweat it. It may be slow and painful but he'll recover."

Link nodded and returned to what he had been doing before: staring quietly at the Goron elder where he lay.

It was warmer here than outside, for whatever that was worth. An armchair dragged hastily against the broken front door kept it almost closed, so that the snow spraying in was nothing but a very fine mist that condensed before it had made it five feet inside, adding to a slowly spreading puddle on the floor.

"Is there anything else we can do?" said Link, not for the first time.

"There really isn't," said Tatl. She looked at him with a shrug. "We're going to be waiting for a while. If you want to go... I don't know, take a nap or polish your shield... I'm happy to hang around here."

"It's okay... I'll stay here with you."

"Of course you will," the faerie grumbled.

Silence.

**-oOo-**

_Time passed and the days grew dark, but the house of cobwebs stood unchanged._

_Wanderer had left the village, continuing on his travels, but he had not forgotten the house, nor had he forgotten the piteous creatures who hid inside. The curse of the golden spider lingered in the back of his mind, an uneasy thought he could not put behind him. It taunted him with every arachnid scuttling through the shadows, with every quiet hiss in a darkened room._

_And every time he thought of it he knew, of course, that it was not his problem, that it needn't be his problem. Who knew how many other reckless young souls had entered the house of spiders only to discover its deformed owners; who knew who many other daring people there were to help break the curse. And it was not as if the curse was a true injustice; in the cursed father's own words he had been a cur of a man._

_But that thought was always followed by the desperation and pain in the creature's face, his pleas for his children, the miserable moans of all who lived in the house. And Wanderer could not bear to look aside entirely, to simply forget._

_You see, Wanderer had a gentle soul._

(a gentle soul?)

_He was – he thought of himself – he was a person of empathy. His heart ached for every crippled soldier lying on the street; it leapt with bitter joy every time he saw children running freely in the mud at the castle gates._

_He could not bear thinking about others' misfortune, their misery. A friend of his said he took their unhappiness and made it a part of him._

(ah, a do-gooder.)

_May I keep going?_

(please.)

_In his travels Wanderer eventually came to an exotic kingdom, a beautiful place where every surface sparkled with all the colours of the rainbow. It seemed so very aloof from the rest of the world with all its earthy ills and misfortunes._

_Before long Wanderer was granted an audience with the king of the domain. The king was a great man, both in deed and in stature. He said to Wanderer, "Our patron, the sacred beast of the lakes, has fallen very ill."_

_And Wanderer said, "I shall help."_

_To cure the sacred beast's illness, he had to offer himself to the beast as food and be swallowed whole. Only then, from inside, could he heal it, by finding the rot inside and taking to it with the blade. And this is what he did, presenting himself at the water's edge with some food in his hands, and the beast's mouth stretched open wide and was soon all around him._

_And as Wanderer travelled deeper into the creature's belly, he heard a strange, scratching sort of noise echoing through the air. _

_The noise wasn't like any living creature he'd ever heard. Drawn to it, he followed the noise through the winding passages of the sacred beasts' innards, following the noise as it got louder._

_Until suddenly he rounded a bend and found himself face to face with one of the curse-spiders for the very first time._

_Now, the spiders-of-the-curse were the size of the smaller Skulltulas, the ones that cling to walls in dark, damp places. Their bodies were maybe... a foot long by half a foot wide, but their long legs reached out much further than that. And where Skulltulas had skull-shaped carapaces on their backs, the spiders-of-the-curse had solid gold ones._

(gold the colour, or gold...?)

_Gold the metal. I didn't... think Wanderer noticed this the first time he saw one of them. But it was really gold – it made a ringing noise when he struck it, it sparkled the same way in torchlight, it... it was definitely gold._

_Now, Wanderer realised at once what the creature was. The words of the cursed man in the abandoned house echoed in his ears: "The power of the curse resides in these spiders. If they are all destroyed, so too is the curse."_

_And so he drew his sword, a small but strong blade, and took slow steps towards the curse spider, squelchy disgusting steps across the floor of the sacred beast's belly. And unlike a real monster, the golden spider neither scattered away nor turned to face him aggressively. It just remained where it was, swivelling left and right, making that same noise._

_It was completely mindless._

(like clockwork?)

_Like clockwork. He could tell by the pricking of his hairs that this was not a living thing; that it had no soul to destroy, only some parcel of dark magic and stolen greed._

_And he remembered the cursed family, and the children who had done no harm, who deserved happiness even if their father did not._

_And without hesitation Wanderer brought his sword down on it and it exploded in a shower of gold dust._

_Gold dust, everywhere, like a cloud. He could taste it on his tongue, though he didn't know what it was that first time. It was too dark and what he saw looked like ashes, glittering ashes, something disgusting and foul and full of dark magic. And even as he brought his arm up to brush it off, the dust faded away. Like it had turned into air._

_And there was a tiny noise from where the spider had been, like a sigh of relief. And... yes? What is it?_

(oh, no, it's nothing.)

_Nothing?_

(i mean, well, i find it interesting. the symbolism, i mean. the courageous hero walking into the belly of the beast to confront the evil within. i've heard a few stories in that vein but the version you're telling, well, it's very explicit about it, isn't it?, i mean, like, it seems like a pretty obvious metaphor for the the hero confronting his own darkness, the rot inside his own blood and guts. the golden spider i'm not so sure about, but maybe that's like a warning for the rich? money corrupts?)

_No, it's not like that at all. It's not a metaphor. He has to go into the giant fish and kill the parasite inside._

(if you say so, kid.)

_He didn't have time to stop and contemplate as the beast was still ill. And now in the silence he could hear muted noises in the distance, almost like a young girl sobbing._

(wait, giant fish? i was thinking turtle.)

**-oOo-**

The Goron elder's return to consciousness was heralded by a violent coughing fit, half melted snow spluttering everywhere. His eyes tracked blearily around the room, taking it all in one thing at a time: the ceiling, the fireplace, the two strangers watching him from nearby.

"Where...?" he croaked, and broke into coughs once again.

"It's okay." Link was out of his chair at once, kneeling by the elder's side. "You're inside now. We're in a house in the village, the human village."

"In... inside?" The Goron's eyes were entirely on Link now, glassy and grey.

"You were out in the cold, do you remember? You were freezing badly when we found you."

"No... I must... my people, I must keep... going..."

The elder tried to sit up, his neck and stomach muscles visibly trembling with the effort, but soon unwound back onto the ground.

"Woah, there," said Tatl, alighting on the Goron's bony chest. "You've got to stay still for now, big guy. We have no idea what damage the cold has done to you."

"We don't?" said Link, looking at Tatl. "You said..."

She rolled her eyes. "I said what you wanted to hear. This guy is – look, I am not a healer, I do not have the slightest idea how to treat Gorons, I have no idea what else might be wrong to him besides a couple of frozen fingers – I mean, he was out there for..." She turned back to the elder. "How long were you out there?"

The elder blinked slowly. "I... our village was in trouble, I went to... it is my duty as elder to make sure they..." He once again raised his head from the ground, trembling with the effort, then sank. "Please... whoever you are, help me up..."

Link paused: there was no way the old Goron was fit to leave in his current state. His eyes fell on the chair he had been in a moment earlier.

"You need to sit down," he said, kneeling down and placing his hands beneath the elder's shoulders. With tremendous effort, he hauled the elder from the ground, the elder's muscles helping what little they could.

"I'm Tatl," said Tatl. "This is Link. We're... okay, we don't really have jobs, but we..."

"Steady," said Link, helping the elder into the chair, whose luxurious red cushions sagged to accommodate the Goron's weight.

The elder spoke shakily but inexorably. "It's this cold snap brought on by... disturbances, Snowhead... crippled our village... frozen it in an icy grip..."

"So we heard," said Tatl gently. "The trade routes were snowed in, weren't they? It's the lack of goods and supplies that is leading to the depopulation of your village."

The elder nodded weakly, and Link was struck by how feeble the Goron looked compared to others of his kind.

"Gorons are not demanding people... don't... don't need much to be happy... food, warmth, shelter... but right now... don't even have that..."

"We'll help," said Link. "We're going to Snowhead."

"No!" said the elder, looking aghast. "This is our problem. We shall not rely on the strength of st... of strangers..."

He broke into a fit of loud, spluttering coughs.

"You're in no state to do anything," said Link gently. "If you go out there you'll only get yourself frozen to death."

"You were nearly dead when we found you," Tatl added. "Lucky we did, huh?"

"But you... you can't... Snowhead is too dangerous for..." Frustrated with his quivering lungs, the elder shook his head violently to convey the message. "You... must not... must be... Goron..."

Link exchanged a glance with Tatl.

"Okay," she said, directing her full attention to the elder, and putting on her most honeylike voice. "Here's what we're going to do. We're going to get some of your Goron buddies to come here and help you, okay? Then if you want you can send them off to Snowhead yourself."

Link raised his eyebrows. The faerie had struck him as too antagonistic to calm anyone down (that was far more a Navi thing), but the elder seemed to be placated by her words.

"You... you will send them here?"

"Yes," said Link quickly. Never let a good thing go to waste. "We'll bring them right here."

The elder nodded. "I... I will wait. I understand."

Link stepped away from the Goron slowly. "We'll go get them now, okay?"

"I don't know what you were thinking," said Tatl with friendly bemusement. "Going out into the mountains alone. It's miserable out there right now."

The elder looked away.

After a minute's pause, Link nodded to the Goron. "Okay. Well... goodbye for now."

Not knowing what else to say he turned and started to leave the room.

The Goron elder's voice called out from behind him.

"Above all..."

Halfway through the doorway, Link paused and turned. The elder's eyes met Link's calmly, looking dignified despite his awkward posture on the chair.

"Above all it's the image of my own poor son," he said, his voice steady now. "Crying continually because of this biting cold, this lack of food, this whole miserable mess."

Link remembered the infant Goron's wailing all too well. "He's still alive, if that's what..."

"Of course, of course." The elder waved him off. "He'll make it, I've seen to it that he gets first share of... but that's not what I meant. My son is miserable. Do you have children?"

"What? No, I–"

"Then you can't possibly understand. It's one thing to see your brothers in pain, but your _son_..." The elder stared off into the distance. "Just as it is my... my duty as tribe elder to keep my people safe, it is my duty as a father to make sure my son is _happy_. And as much as anything that is why... that is why I went out to stop the winds coming from Snowhead. That is why you cannot expect me to stay here and do nothing as the land gets colder with every passing minute."

"You won't be doing nothing," said Link in what he hoped was a soothing voice. "We're just going to get help – the other Gorons. Your people, your brothers. Once they're here to make sure... uh, to look after you, then you can keep going. It will only be a few hours." He looked the Goron in the eye, trying to judge his response. "Please. It's for your village too. If you die out there in the cold, there's nobody left to protect them."

The elder set his lips. "Then I shall wait."

**-oOo-**

"'Do you have children?'," repeated Tatl.

"That Goron was having a genuine heartfelt moment, and-"

"You're _ten_. Is he blind?"

"-and you're doing nothing but belittling him! Don't you have an ounce of sympathy for him?"

"Well, yeah, a couple of ounces, but..."

**-oOo-**

**Goron Village  
The Northern Mountains**

They returned to the shrine, the one occupied building in the Goron village, where they talked to the guard outside. He didn't seem to recognise them, so he probably wasn't one of the Gorons they'd talked to before, but Link wasn't absolutely certain. The rock people all looked so similar to him.

The guard listened attentively as Link and Tatl explained the situation with the elder.

"I'll talk to the others," the Goron said once they were done. "We'll send a party to bring him back here. He is in the human village, you say?... The elder left a week ago, I can't believe he only got that far." He shook his head. "I think it was a mistake for him to go alone in the cold. The elder is not as strong as he used to be."

"He was frozen solid when we found him," said Tatl. "Good thing we found him when we did."

"Yes, indeed," said the Goron. "I am sure I speak for all my brothers when I say that we are all very grateful for what you have done."

"Can I ask you a favour?" said Link.

The Goron blinked. "A favour?"

"We're going to Snowhead soon to deal with... whatever it is that's causing the blizzard. I was wondering if..."

"Snowhead?" The Goron looked him up and down slowly. "It is a treacherous place at the best of times. Why would you want to go there?"

"I... someone asked me to."

"Someone?"

Link hesitated, wondering if it was a bad idea to go on.

"Darmani's ghost," he said a second later.

The Goron gasped. "So it is true!" he said.

"What's true?" said Tatl.

"My brothers said a human boy had gone to ease Darmani's spirit, to spare us from his anger. I thought it might be a hallucination, but... you are real!"

He made to clap Link on the shoulders and Link took an involuntary step back. "Yes, we're real," he said.

"Did you fight Darmani? Was his spirit angry? Did he remember us?" The Goron paused in his excitement. "But you say he sent you to Snowhead. Strange news indeed, brother."

"Yes." Link gave a little shrug. "Do you know anything about how to get to Snowhead? Only all we know about it is how hard it is for us to get there."

"Hard for _you_," corrected Tatl. "I can _fly_."

"Of course!" said the Goron at once. "If Darmani wanted you to, I and my brothers would be happy to help. Come inside..."

With seeming disregard for his post, he opened the shrine gate and led them inside, closing the door behind him. Link was prepared this time for the ear-piercing ceaseless wailing emanating from the farthest reaches of the shrine, but that did nothing to alleviate the twinge of pain at his eardrums as he ducked his head and followed the Goron sentry through the shrine as he summoned his brothers and shouted over the din to explain what Link and Tatl were doing here.

Once word got out what was going on, the other Gorons were more than accommodating to the newcomers. Soon enough half dozen of them were gathered with Link and Tatl at the top level of the shrine.

"Is the elder all right?" one asked them.

"He'll be okay if you get your butts down there," said Tatl. "I think the cold has gotten to his head. Would you believe he asked this kid here whether he had..."

"Here," said one Goron, emerging from a small store room with several sheets of fabric in his hands. "Maps," he clarified, seeing Link's quizzical look. He set the fabric down on the ground, where the thick inky brushstrokes across them became apparent.

_WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIH UUUUUNNNNNNIIIIIIIHHHHHHHH_

The horrible wailing that was the elder's son was coming directly from the next room; it took all Link's willpower to shut it out and concentrate on what the Gorons were saying.

"First. This map," one Goron said, indicating. "This is the human village. Which house is the elder in?"

Link paused, picturing the lay of the village in his head, and pointed. "That there. There may still be smoke in the chimney. He's just inside the door, you can't miss him."

"All right." The Goron smeared an 'X' onto the map with one inky finger, and immediately another Goron had swept it up in his arms and was hurrying down the stairs with it. Link paused, marvelling at the efficiency. The Gorons almost seemed to have a new sense of drive.

"We'll send a party after him," a different Goron said to Link. "It will take a little time to organise; our numbers are few, we need as many on hand as possible to maintain the fires and keep the children safe..."

"Now. Snowhead." Another Goron, spreading open another map. "This map is over a hundred years old, but the path from the human village to Snowhead is much the same. It..."

_WAAAAAAA... HUNH, UGH... U-WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH D- DA- DAAAAAAAAADDDDY DAAAAAAAAAAAADDDDY_

In unison, the Gorons all shrugged apologetically. "Sorry. That's the elder's son... the crying is heartbreaking, he's been so much worse ever since his father left..."

"That must suck," said Tatl without any real feeling. "He'll get used to it eventually."

"That's what we thought a week ago," the Goron replied glumly.

Another map was produced, this one only about the size of an open book. "This is a map of the lower floors of Snowhead. Darmani goes... he used to go there every second summer to check on it."

"Check on it?" said Link, folding the map up. "What was there to check on?"

"Darmani said there was a spirit that lived at the foot of the Snowhead citadel, a benevolent guardian spirit that watched over our young."

"Ah, yup," said Tatl knowingly. "One of the four giants."

"Giants?" The Goron looked puzzled. "What giants do you speak of?"

"Come on, the four giants," said Tatl. "_Everyone _knows the four giants! Even this kid here only arrived in Termina, well, yesterday, and he knows about the four giants."

"Perhaps this is some Clock Town custom?" said the Goron. "Darmani certainly never spoke of it. He referred to the guardian spirit as a great unseeable Goron–"

"That's just nonsense. Invisible Gorons? No, it's one of the four giants. We saw one, isn't that right, Link? At Woodfall down in the south..."

A loud rumbling announced the arrival of a new Goron, rolling at high speeds up the ramp with his limbs tucked tight into his chest. He came to an abrupt stop just feet away from the assembled people, unfolding himself upright.

"Brothers! There's been a snow-in at the north storehouse. The food there might..."

The Goron who had brought Link in turned to him now. "We cannot spare any people right now, not least for a trip to Snowhead. Few Gorons are brave enough to risk the journey there. If Darmani's ghost told you to go there he must have thought you had the strength to survive the journey."

Link nodded, feeling an odd sense of relief at this. "Okay. We can go it alone. Thanks for your help."

The Gorons stared at him with identical worried looks.

"You're not... going there _now_, are you?" said one.

"Is that a bad idea?" said Link.

_Hunh... WAAAAAAAAAAAAH I'M COOOOOOOOLD... DAAAAAAADDY HIUNH WAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIUUUUUUUUH_

The Gorons exchanged grimaces.

"You shouldn't," said the first Goron. "The path there is exposed to the wind, and a strong gust would easily blow you off the mountain."

"Like Darmani," muttered Tatl. Link was thinking the same.

"We have been watching the clouds closely. The wind will be very bad for the next week. It's coming from the south to the west, from the ocean. I hear there are bad storms there now."

Link exhaled slowly. "We need to go there soon. The moon is going to... well..."

"Squash us all like flies," said Tatl tactfully.

"Very well." The Goron nodded. "Then at least wait until tomorrow. The next twenty-four hours will be the worst of it. Give it until tomorrow morning before you set out. After that... well, let us hope you are worthy of Darmani's trust."

"I won't let him down."

"It's not your heart we doubt; it is your body. This is a job for a warrior of Darmani's strength, not... well, a human. Be careful."

Link nodded. "We will."

"No he won't," muttered Tatl.

Bidding him a respectful farewell, the Gorons left to attend to their own emergencies, and Link and Tatl were left alone at the top of the shrine, staring down at the miserable old and young ones huddling together below.

_HENH UWAAAAAAAAAAAAAH H-HUNH HYU UUUUIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAH_

"So," said Tatl. "We have a day until the weather clears. What do you want to do?"

Link paused, considering.

Darmani's final instructions to him replayed themselves in his head:

_Be prepared for a fight. Arm yourself to the teeth._

"Let's..." He hesitated. "We can't do much here for now. Let's stock up on supplies."

Tatl turned her head toward him slowly.

"Does this involve going somewhere warmer?" she said cautiously.

"Definitely."

"Then hell yes."

**CYCLE 2: HYSTERIA  
DAWN of the SECOND DAY**

* * *

**A/N:** I love you guys. (Guys and girls? I really feel like "guys" is becoming gender-neutral, but hey, maybe that's just me. You could totally debate this in the review you leave me.)

That's right. I'm just going to _assume_ you're reviewing.

Power of positive thinking.

Fanfic writing is so much more fun than working :)

Tactful Tatl tacitly tut-tuts tactile Tektites. Terrific.

-tiki


	35. AUTHOR'S NOTE now with sad hiatus face

**A/N: **Hi all. A little bad news :(

For the last few months I have been suffering from various problems with my arms (mainly pinched ulnar nerves; possibly other things too). This makes typing a very very slow/painful process; also possibly a bad idea.

You can probably see where this is going. _Insomnia_ is not going to be making much progress for the near future... not until it's safe for me to do long bouts of typing again. This sucks for me because I really, really, _really_ want to keep the story moving - I love the process of writing with it, I know exactly where I am going (and I damn well don't want to give up before the 'twist' at the **[redacted]** of Cycle **[redacted]** which is probably really obvious if you know how my mind and the mechanics of this story work... not that I'd expect you to know how my mind works :P).

This also sucks for you if you like this story, which you probably do since you probably clicked into this from a story alert. As such consider this a contrite apology for the however-long gap until I'm next able to update. I'm really sorry, and I swear I'll get this story going again as soon as I'm humanly able to.

sorrysorrysorrysorry

In the meantime, let me leave you with some crackfic courtesy of a friend who shall remain nameless...

* * *

"Hey look Tatl, there's that hot spring we were going to go to!" said Link.

"Wingshreds!" exclaimed Tatl.

They both wandered around happy, because it was totally warmer near the hotspring, and frolicked in the hot water and stuff.

"I know, why don't you get some of that warm water and store it for later? It might come in handy, hinthint" Tatl said.

"Why don't you get it yourself?" Link muttered angrily (he was angry because he wanted to stay in the warm place and not move, or something. I don't know, I haven't even played the game!)

"Because I can't, I'm just a tiny ball of light!" Tatl said sarcrastically.

"Oh, right, yeah." Link said. He grabbed a bottle out of his magically bottomless pockets and filled it with some Hot Spring Water.

"Hey, look over here! There are giant snowballs! Why don't you smash them open, you know, for target practice or something, just in case there are more birds or whatever it was I was scared of many chapters ago that you totally didn't attack because you suck? Also wingshreds!"

"Well, I am warm now so I guess I have nothing better to do!" said Link.

Link went around and started smashing snowballs. They broke apart in a really satisfying way, with a whole heap of snow flying out in all directions whenever he smashed one. It was really therapeutic, because he didn't like the cold because it was cold and stuff, so it made him feel better. All of a sudden, the snowball Link broke had a Goron inside!

"Help me, I am so frozen and cold!" the Goron elder said, but it actually came out more like "" because he was inside a giant snowball.

"Don't worry, I'll save you! I'm Link and I save everyone and stuff!"

Tatl fluttered around in front of his face, saying "Why don't you use some of that Hot Spring Water you got earlier?"

"Good idea!" Link got the Hot Spring Water out, and poured it on the Goron elder. He miraculously came back to life!

"Wha.. who the hell are you? What's with your stupid hat? And your ears?" the Elder exclaimed.

"Wingshreds! You'd better put that Goron mask back on if you want him to take you seriously!"

"Oh yeah. Sorry, I kind of suck at being-a-video-game-hero" Link said, and then he put the mask on. He felt himself grow heavy, and he also felt his strength multiply times infinity, so while his head now weighed more than it ever had before (except for the last time he was a Goron), his neck was also strong enough to hold it up!

"Oh, hello there young Goron. I didn't see you there before. It must be the cold weather, you know, it's very cold" the Goron Elder said, nodding wisely. "I am so grateful for you for saving me! How are things back at home anyway?"

"Well, your son misses you, he won't stop cryi-"

"My son misses me? Alas! Hey, what a coincidence, there is only one way to shut him up, and it's to sing The Song Of Lullabies. It's way too cold for me to remember it all, but I think I know how the start goes..."

The Goron elder started to hum a tune to Link, who made a mental note of it.

"Thanks, Mr Goron Elder dude. Wingshreds! Now, let's go make that stupid wingshredding baby shut up! Come on, Link!" Tatl fluttered enthusiastically past them both and off in the right direction. Link followed Goron-like (get it, because he has the Goron mask on) behind her, on to do the next step in his incredibly long quest to save the world from Skull kid.

* * *

(Think you could write worse Insomnia-parody? You're probably right. Send some to my email address [my user name at gmail dot com]. Or anything else, really. An illustration of that one cool bit in chapter 25 might be epic... I am unable to write and very very bored and **you, yes you**, can make me feel loved :P)


	36. Detective Work

**INSOMNIA  
based on _The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask_**

**The Western Alleyways  
Clock Town**

The western quarter. A maze of narrow alleyways made of creamy pavement stone and uneven steps. Flowers and ground mosaics scattered everywhere completed a subtle palette of colours, pleasant to the eye but not in the least distracting.

Link and Tatl arrived in Clock Town an hour or two after sunrise. Their trip from the mountains had been brisk but long, their coming task at Snowhead lingering at the back of their minds. The Goron mask now sat on Link's belt next to the Deku one, its added weight almost imperceptible but a new burden nonetheless.

A light drizzle drifted down from the clouds, causing the not unpleasant smell of wet brick and mud to rise from the ground.

"This is a really beautiful town," said Link.

"Aw, yeah?" said Tatl. She sounded flattered. "You mustn't see a lot of towns, then."

"I'm serious. If you'd told me before I came here that there was a place this crowded, so many people and so little space, and it was still so... so _nice_ to be in, I wouldn't have believed you."

Tatl processed this. "Okay... So you're not used to big towns," she said. "What does that make you, a village kid? Farm kid?"

"Village."

"Okay, village. And lots of kids," she mused. "You said lots of kids before."

Link stopped. "Are you keeping _notes_?" he said, exasperated.

Tatl rolled her eyes. "As if. I'm _remembering_. You know, with my _brain_. Do you have one of those?... actually, don't answer that. I remember things I find interesting. Right now I find you interesting."

"Interesting," repeated Link dryly. "You do realise it's none of your-"

"_Hey_, hey. Seeing as I need your help to save the world and get my brother back from the clutches of evil? Yeah, I kind of think it _is_ my business what sort of person you are."

As they were talking they were also keeping an eye out for the various supplies they would need at Snowhead. Countless shopfronts advertised wares for 'the safety-minded traveller' – from gold-tipped spears ("Useless," said Link, "gold doesn't pierce anything"), to armour made of baby seahorse scales ("Total ripoff," advised Tatl, "it's imported dragon scales, you can see the paint flaking") to braided rope whips and giant gear-shaped spinning tops (whose exact usefulness neither Link nor Tatl, nor indeed anyone at the seedy-looking 'curiosity shop' where they found it, was able to explain).

The more difficult issue was that they still had no money.

Tatl had no reservations pointing this out every few minutes. "So how are we paying for all this swag? _Are _we paying?"

"We're not thieves," said Link flatly.

"So what, then? Or are we just window shopping?"

Link shook his head. "No. It's quite simple. What we usually did..."

"'We'? Oh, you mean what's-her-face... Navi? Your partner in crime?"

"I'm not a criminal."

"It's a figure of speech, birdbrain."

"Well..." Link shook his head. "It's quite simple. First, we find what we're looking for – arrows, armour – and then we'll see if they'll trade it to us for a favour. Helping them clear the bats out of their attic, or tracking down their lost dog... That way everybody wins. We get the supplies we need, they get our help with something."

Tatl gave him an odd look. "That _works_?"

"It does. I've gotten all sorts of things that way. Quivers, wallets..." Link paused, a few half-fond memories creeping up on him.

"No," said Tatl, "I mean... That _works_? People just sit around with pest infestations or missing children or, I don't know, a kite stuck on top of an old building, which they can't be shredded fixing themselves, until you rock up?"

"Well, they don't get their hands dirty."

"I'm sorry, I meant to say _dragon_ infestations or missing children who were last seen in ye old forest of monsters or a kite stuck on top of an old building guarded by the flaming demon hounds of death and a maze of floating platforms..."

"Nobody has dragon infestations," protested Link. Though, he supposed, there _had _been those Dodongos in the cellar at Kakariko Inn...

"Yes, yes, but that's _not the point_," said Tatl, looking increasingly irritated. "Not every single person you want to buy something from is going to have some little errand they want run, are they? What are you planning to do when someone actually _wants money_ for whatever you..."

"Then we buy it," said Link. "It's simple."

"_But we don't have money_._"_

"Which is why we're going to help someone out instead."

"No, but what if... what if – actually, you know what? Never mind. If you need me, I'm going to be by that brick wall over there. Bashing my head against it. It's the less frustrating option here."

It was surprisingly hard to find quality goods at remotely reasonable prices, Link found. Everything sold for twice the price it would have in Hyrule – even the flimsiest of wooden shields cost an arm and a leg.

They kept their eyes peeled for anything interesting, although Link became more and more discouraged as he went. Most of the patrons perusing the weapons shops didn't even look as if they knew how to use the wares – most of them were the well-dressed aristocratic type, most likely buying halberds or arrows to display on their mantlepieces than to defend themselves with.

"Ooh," said Tatl, as they came across one store front. "Bomb shop."

"Bomb shop?" said Link, stopping and turning.

"Bomb shop," said Tatl. "Sells bombs. Bombs? Things that go boom?"

"I know what they are," said Link. "That... could be useful. I want to go in; do you mind?"

Tatl's jaw dropped. "Wow. I... go inside? _Wow_."

"What is it?"

"You want to go into the place with the big exploding thingies. _I_ want to go into the place with the big exploding thingies. We actually _agree_ on something."

Link laughed. "I don't think this is the first..."

"Link," interrupted Tatl, holding a finger to her lips. "Let me have this moment."

She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.

"What are you-"

"_Shush._"

For a place selling such dangerous wares, the shop had a surprisingly relaxed atmosphere. It was rather bare-bones, consisting mostly of wooden crates on wooden floors. A glass-plated skylight lit a display counter covered with all manners of incendiary devices. A bald man in a dark tunic sat by the counter, flipping through a pamphlet covered in drawings of skulls. He glanced up as they entered, nodded to them, and returned to his reading.

Link perused the nearest shelf of explosives, and carefully lifted a round throwing bomb out. "They're decent quality," he whispered. It felt perhaps a little heavier than the sort he'd used in Hyrule. The fuse material looked thicker, less prone to unexpected blowouts. "Maybe we should talk to the shopkeeper, see if we can help him..." A moment passed without response, and he glanced up. "...Tatl?"

He turned, scanning the room, and spotted the faerie hovering over the many crates in the back.

"So... many... bombs..." she breathed.

An old woman in plaid shuffled into the room, carrying a crate of firecrackers twice her weight. She set it down, her lower back bending with a crinking noise as the crate thudded to the ground by the counter.

"Oh! Hello there, dear!" she said, spotting Link and Tatl.

"Hi," said Link. "We're..."

"Oh, no, no, don't worry about it," said the lady, waddling over to give Link a warm hug. "You needn't mention it at all."

"Mention... it?" Link glanced sideways at Tatl, who scrunched her face and mouthed _Song of Time_, followed by several ruder words, followed by pulling her hair in pantomime frustration.

"Yes, dear." The lady's eyes twinkled. "No good deed goes unrewarded, as they say. You!" she barked to the shopkeeper, who looked up nonchalantly. "Get this gentleman the number three special, on the house."

"Yes ma'am," said the man, his rangy figure slowly uncoiling as he stood. "And for the faerie?"

Tatl smiled sweetly.

**-oOo-**

They stepped back outside half an hour later; Link a hundred ounces heavier, Tatl a quarter-ounce. The Hylian now had, fastened on a sling around his shoulder, a small waterproof bag stuffed with bombs the size of small plums. An abrasive phosphorus patch tied to the side of his belt served as a makeshift lighter.

Tatl was carrying a matchstick. Link saw no way this could possibly be a good thing.

"So is this just how it works?" said Tatl with a mild air of disgust. "Use your cheaty time travel thing to keep on getting cheaty things for free instead of stealing them?"

"Yes, I – time travel is cheating but stealing is fine?"

"_Stealing makes sense_. Getting free swag because our past selves..."

"Future selves," corrected Link.

"No, _past_ selves, because... um, _future_ selves... look, it's just not _natural_," said Tatl, looking at him pleadingly. "We're going to do our heads in. You realise that? This time travel stuff is bad news."

"It saved us from Skull Kid on the Clock Tower, remember?"

"And what else have we gotten from time travel? Nothing! A hell of a lot of confusion, fights with big sword monsters the size of houses, and..."

"We got free bombs," offered Link.

Tatl bit her lip. "Hrm. I suppose it's not _all _bad." She returned to twirling her match around. "Anyone else you want to magic into giving free stuff?"

"It's not magic, it's time travel."

"Time travel is magic."

"...okay, that's true. We need arrows, but maybe for that we can just see... the farm woman. Uh..." He willed the name up from his memory. "Cremia. We should–"

"Ah, if it isn't my favourite personal detective!"

Link turned to see the corpulent Madame Aroma, wife to the Mayor and mother of a missing son. She was beaming so widely that the foundation caked on her face was cracking.

"Madame Aroma!" said Link, putting on what he hoped looked like a pleased smile. "I wasn't expecting to see you so soon..."

"Madame Stinky-face!" said Tatl under her breath, mimicking Link's tone of voice perfectly. "I wasn't hoping to see you ever again..."

Link shot Tatl a look, then turned back to find Madame Aroma shaking his hand vigorously. Even outdoors the stench of her perfume was nearly enough to knock him out.

"How goes the investigation?" said Aroma in a low voice.

"We're making progress," whispered Tatl.

"We're making progress," said Link. "Your son... we're following up leads."

"Oh, excellent, excellent," said Aroma. She gestured beside her. "Have you met my good friend, Toto?"

Beside Madame Aroma was an equally rotund Zora, wearing a navy suit complete with white bowler hat and an oak cane. Link vaguely recalled having seen him loitering around the mayor's office.

"How do you do," said Link, extending a hand.

"Toto is in the music business. He does _very _well for himself, believe me." Aroma's tone of voice was rather clear: _We are far more successful than you; don't ever forget that_. "Toto, this is..." She paused, her false smile never leaving her face as she clearly attempted to recall Link's name. "This is the detective who has been helping me with Kafei."

Toto accepted Link's handshake. Despite smelling slightly of rotten tuna, he was still less pungent than Aroma. "Are the fins damp lately?" he said in a booming, bassy voice.

"Pardon me?" said Link.

"That's the greeting used amongst us Zora," Toto explained.

Tatl snickered behind him, and Link could see where she was coming from. The Zora in Hyrule most _certainly _hadn't talked like that.

Madame Aroma swept in. "Allow me to have a brief word with the detective, Toto. It'll only be a minute."

"Of course," said Toto. He tipped his hat to Link and stepped away. "Vital work you're doing there, son, vital work."

Aroma leant in close. "Have you found the culprit yet?" she whispered.

"I..." Link looked at Tatl desperately.

"We're following up some promising leads," whispered Tatl.

"We're following up some promising leads," repeated Link.

"Good to hear," said Aroma, "good to hear." Her eyes narrowed. "Is that Anju character involved? I don't trust her. Not one bit."

"I'm not at liberty to tell you," whispered Tatl.

"I can't tell you right now," said Link. "It would, uh..."

"Interfere with the investigation," whispered Tatl.

"...interfere with the investigation."

"I see," said Aroma. She smiled warmly. "A professional through and through, you are."

Beside them, Aroma's companion was being heckled by a young man dressed in plain clothes.

"Mr Toto! _Clock Town Maunderer_. Can I have a few minutes of your time?"

"You most certainly may not," the Zora grumbled.

"Is it true that the Indigo-Go's are unable to play at the Festival opening?"

"No comment. Go away."

"What about the rumours that your lead singer has run off to be married with the Mayor's son?"

"They are _rumours_. Ridiculous, baseless, absolutely untrue rumours. Is that what you people do? Report rumours as news? I said _go away_."

"Is it true your bass player died of food poisoning and you replaced him with his secret twin?"

The Zora blanched. "What is this nonsense? Get out of my face before I have you arrested, young man!"

Aroma noticed Link gazing at the altercation. "Never mind the riff-raff," she said, nudging Link. "It is the sad lot of my kind to be hassled by them week in, week out."

"Your kind?" said Link.

Aroma shrugged. "You know... the rich, the important." She raised her arm to glance at her wristwatch, a gem-studded thing easily worth more than most people could make in five years. "But look at the time! I must be going. Unless there's anything I can do to... assist?"

"Yes, go jump off a cliff," whispered Tatl.

"Y- _No_," said Link, glaring at the faerie, "nothing at all."  
Aroma flashed him a crocodilian smile. "Excellent." She motioned to Toto. "Well, then."

With a grunt, her Zora companion joined her and they strutted off into the crowd.

"You know..." said Link slowly, watching them go.

Tatl gave him a firm look. "Are you about to ask if we can waste time doing your silly detective thing again?"

"Finding a missing person is not 'silly'."

"Uh huh. Sure. You tell yourself that."

"We're not in a rush, though. The Gorons said we couldn't go to Snowhead until tomorrow morning; a couple of hours can't hurt..."

"I guess we _do_ have a day to kill..." Tatl nodded reluctantly. "Okay. Fine. Have it your way."

Link nodded enthusiastically. "Thanks, Tatl. Let's go to Kafei's old house and find clues. Do you know where that is?"

"'Find clues'? Oh, you _are _adorable." Tatl smirked. "You don't think the town watch would have looked through there already? Nah, if you want to do this detective thing properly, start somewhere different."

"Different?" said Link, a little peeved at having been shot down so quickly. "What does that mean?"

"You know... somewhere where the adults wouldn't have tried looking for..."

She trailed off, a smile spreading across her face.

"What is it?" said Link.

"I know where to go," said Tatl, her voice even more musical than normal.

"Where?"

"This-a-way," she sang, zooming off in an apparently random direction.

"Okay, but where are we going?"

By the time the words had left Link's mouth, Tatl was already some thirty feet away.

"I said, _this way_!" she called.

Link sighed, started walking in her direction, only to see her speed up.

"Slow down!" he called, breaking into a jog.

"Learn to fly!" she rejoined.

Over the next five minutes or so Tatl led him on a brisk route through the south-east part of Clock Town (a route which, thank heavens, was less circuitous than her usual navigation). Between dodging the fast-moving crowds and keeping his balance on the cobblestone tiles, slick with rain, Link didn't have much attention to spare for the scenery – but, as he rounded each corner, some tiny part of his mind noted the exact location of every shovel and axe and sharp object and shadowy alley and accessible patch of high ground, just in case something happened and he had no time to think. In a town as well-guarded as this, such paranoia felt unnecessary, but then again he would have said the same for Kakariko.

They slowed to a halt in a rather uninteresting stretch of shop fronts. A few silk and jewellery stores surrounded them, but there was nothing of relevance that Link could see. The middle-aged women dressed in their festival best, haggling over a large yellow vegetable? The stringy jugglers in the corner, tossing balls back and forth and exchanging bad jokes?

"There we go," said Tatl.

Link took a second, slower glance around, still not spotting anything. "Um... Tatl? What are we doing here?"

"Ask not _what _are we doing," said Tatl, motioning towards someone a few yards away, "but _who _we are doing... things... to."

She was pointing to a boy, perhaps seven years old, who was watching the jugglers with childish fascination. He was wearing a blue headscarf and a baggy white shirt with the number '4' written boldly on the back.

"The Bombers?" said Link, recognising the uniform immediately. "You want to ask them about Kafei?"

"The Bombers _Secret Society of Justice_," said Tatl with mocking gravity. "And of course I do. They may be a bunch of pesky kids, but they know exactly what goes on in this town. Mayor's son goes missing, they're the person to ask. Um, _people _to ask."

"Right, but..." Link considered this, then nodded. "All right. You're the local."

"Exactly."

The Bomber boy saw them approaching and immediately swivelled to face Link. His manner was bright-eyed and friendly and reminded Link more than a little of someone he'd used to see in mirrors.

"Hi there. What's your name? Can I help you? Huh?"

"Hi," said Link, smiling back. "I'm trying to find someone."

"Find someone, huh? Never fear! The Bombers are..." The Bomber boy suddenly noticed Tatl beside him. "_You_!"

"Me?" said Tatl sweetly, flying close enough to the boy's nose that his eyes crossed. "What about me?"

"You're... you're that Tatl person... faerie-person. J... Jim said not to talk to you when he wasn't there. He said you wanted to steal all our secrets." The Bomber backed away quickly.

"Well-" began Link.

"Let me handle this," said Tatl firmly. She cocked her head towards the other boy. "Look, kid, we don't want to talk to _you_, we want to talk to _Jim_."

"I... I dunno..."

"Just tell us where he is, and we'll talk to him, and you won't get in trouble. Pretty please?" Tatl fluttered her eyelids. "Just help out a girl in need, will ya?"

The Bomber winced, then nodded. "He might be outside the Stockpot Inn right now," he said.

"Stockpot Inn. Thanks." Tatl waved to Link. "That's a short walk from here. Come on, let's go."

**-oOo-**

"Take off your cap," said Tatl, as they neared their destination.  
Link gave her a look.  
"Why?" he said.  
"Jim saw you as a Deku scrub, genius. Don't you think he'll get a bit suspicious if you turn up wearing the exact same jester's cap?"

Link tugged his cap off, folded it once, and shoved it under his belt. "It's the traditional clothing of my home village," he said with a touch of indignation.

"Blah, blah, blah. Straighten up your hair while you're at it; you look like a stray dog." She rubbed her chin whimsically. "Hey, this is kind of fun. Maybe I should go into childcare."  
Link rolled his eyes (oh Goddesses, he was rolling his eyes _again_, when had that started?) and ran his fingers through his hair a couple of times, days-old dirt mixing with the rain to become mud between his fingers.

"Any other silly requests?" he sighed.

"They're not silly," said Tatl. "I want you to look presentable. Jim's already seen me with the world's klutziest Deku scrub; I don't know what he's going to think if I rock up now with a human kid who looks like he's never heard of bathing."

Link shot her a look but said nothing.

"Oh wingshreds," said Tatl after a pause. "Please tell me you _have_ heard of bathing."

"Of course." Link groaned.

Another pause. "Ever, uh, tried it?"

He swatted at her at about three quarters of his maximum speed, giving her just enough time to dodge.

Tatl laughed. "Okay, okay, good. Just checking. And let me do the talking to start with. I know Jim. I'll soften him up for you."  
Link very much doubted that Tatl could 'soften up' anyone, but he nodded nonetheless. "If you want."

They shortly arrived outside the Stockpot Inn, the place where they'd seen Madame Aroma and Anju yesterday. The rain was thickening, and more and more the drone began to drown out the sound of Tatl's wings and Link's footsteps.

"I don't see Jim anywhere around..." said Link. "Are you sure he's here?"

"He'll show," said Tatl.

"Are you sure?" said Link. "The Bomber didn't even sound that sure he'd be here."

"Don't worry. I know Jim. He'll show."

Link shrugged. "All right..."

They stood there in silence for a few minutes.

"Any idea how long he'll be?" said Link, shifting his weight from one foot to another.

"He's probably just making us wait," said Tatl. "Making sure we understand his time is precious. That's Jim for you."

The rain was truly pelting down now. Tatl settled onto Link's shoulder, complaining about flying with waterlogged wings.

A few more minutes passed.

"Okay," said Tatl, "maybe if we act as if we've given up on him showing, he'll show."

Link glanced around. "How exactly does that work?"

"It's ironic," said Tatl, "Jim loves irony." Then, louder: "Well, _looks _like _Jim's _not _turning up_. Let's just _go_, then, since he _isn't_ _coming_."

Silence.

A few more minutes passed.

"Okay," groaned Tatl, "maybe he isn't actually..."

A voice spoke from behind them:

"I hear you're looking for me."

Link turned.

When he'd first met Jim, leader of the Bombers, Link had been struck by the boy's maturity. His cherub's face and dirty red cap belied a steely self-assuredness. Now here he was, sitting on the edge of a disused cart by the side of the road, seemingly unconcerned by the rain. He could have been sitting there for a while – Link hadn't heard him arrive, and given that Link had survived the Shadow Temple, that was saying something.

"Jim," said Tatl, with only the faintest trace of annoyance.

Jim raised an eyebrow but still didn't turn to look at them. "Fancy seeing you again so soon, Tatl. Is this your new hobby? Pulling random people off the street and wasting my time with 'em?" He tapped a finger against his arm. "You could have picked a better time. Things are a little busy right now."

"We'll be quick," said Link.  
Jim gave a shrug so small it might have been a twitch. "Sure, I'll give you a few minutes. What's that there?" Jim motioned to Link's belt. "That a cap?"  
"No," said Tatl. "It's not a cap. It's something completely different."  
"Uh-huh," said Jim.  
He hopped down from the cart and strode towards them. It was the first time Link had encountered him as a human, and he noticed they were the same height.

"So what happened to your little Deku friend?" said Jim.

Tatl shrugged nonchalantly. "He's, uh, busy."

"Ah." Jim smirked. "Ditched him, huh?"

"What? I would _never_..."

For the briefest of moments after the words left Tatl's mouth, she seemed to realise what she had just said. Her eyes flicked in Link's direction, an abashed look flitting across her face, and Link felt a surge of warmth towards the faerie.

Then she was talking: "Okay, okay, you caught me. I ditched the scrub. He was getting all annoying to handle. Never did what he was told to, never gives _me_ a second thought, putting me in mortal danger every five minutes..."

"_Mortal danger?_" said Link, incensed.

Tatl ignored him, looking at Jim with a desolate shrug. "What can I say? Deku boy is reckless and hotheaded and wingshreddingly holier than thou. I swear, one more speech about the sanctity of life, and..."

"The Deku scrub could talk?" said Jim. "Funny. Thought he was mute. Bad case of termites or sumthin'."

"Oh. Um." Tatl laughed nervously. "Did I say he talked? Didn't mean that. But he is really really annoying."

Jim shrugged. "So is the scrub still coming tonight or do I need to find a new... person?"

"Tonight? Uh... _right_, tonight. Yup. He's still coming. I will... bring him along."

"Good to hear." Jim crossed his arms. "So what _else_ can I do for you today, Tatl? Who's the new kid?"

Tatl motioned to Link. "I've got a friend here who needs some help looking for another friend who went missing not long ago." She paused and furrowed her brow. "Well, a friend of a friend, actually. Friend of a kind-of friend, maybe more like friend of an acquaintance. Boyfriend of an acquaintance. My friend here wants to help the other friend, sorry, acquaintance, find her friend because he's a friendly sort of person. Uh, not the friend who's missing, _this _friend here. Though I'm sure the other friend's friendly too."

"This explains _so much_," said Jim. "Tatl's brain has finally started to rot."

Tatl cackled. "Yeah no. Anyway, this is Link. Link, this is Jim."

Jim stretched out a hand. "Nice to meet you, Link."

"Nice to meet you," echoed Link.

"You from out of town, Link?" said Jim. "You have a little accent-"

"I _know_, right?" Tatl chimed in. "It's so... so quaint and cute."

"It's not _cute_," said Link indignantly. "I'm not _cute_."

Tatl looked at Link sadly. "I'm sorry, Link, _everyone _is cute at your height."

Link shot her a look and was met with a condescending smile.

"So you're trying to find someone?" said Jim.  
"We're looking for a man named Kafei," said Link.  
Jim's reply was instant. "Never heard of him."  
"He's about average height, blue hair, thickly built..."

"Never heard of him."

"Really?" said Link. "But he's the mayor's _son_."

Jim raised his eyebrows. "Sorry. Never heard of him." He glanced at Tatl. "Is that it? Is that all you needed me for? I need to get back to business. Busy week."

"You didn't even listen to a word..." Tatl began.

"No, I heard plenty," said Jim. "Kafei, blue hair, adult male. Never heard of him in my life."

Link found this patently suspicious, but Tatl was there before him:

"Jim, come on. I know you. You're holding something back. Trust me."

Jim laughed. "Trust you, Tatl?"

"Come on, when have I _ever_ done anything to..."

She trailed off as Jim pulled a notebook from his pocket and began flipping through it.

"...you keep _notes_?" Tatl said weakly.

"I keep notes on everyone," said Jim. "You and your brother have _pages_, believe me."

"...look, never mind. Still. Trust me _this_ time."

"Tatl, if you and your friend – er, Link – keep asking me the exact same question, what do you think you're going to keep getting?"

Link guessed: "The exact same answer?", and for some reason Tatl shot him a disgusted look.

"That right," Jim said with a nod. "So if you don't mind..." He waved in the general direction behind him.

The message was pretty clear.

"Thanks for your time," said Link, putting on a smile.

"Lot of blasted help you were," said Tatl, not bothering. She nudged Link. "Come on, this way."

Without another word they started walking away.

Link quietly mulled to himself, replaying Jim's every word in his mind's eye. There was deception involved, he was sure of–

"By the way..."

Link stopped and turned.

Jim was looking him up and down with a critical eye.

"Yes?" said Link.

"Nice sword you've got there..." said Jim slowly.

Link nodded warily. "It's not for sale."

Jim laughed. "Ha. Not in the market, believe me. You any good with it?"

"The sword?" Link shrugged. "I'm all right."

Jim's gaze flickered to a spot just behind him, and Link glanced over his shoulder just in time to see Tatl abort an exaggerated waving motion and look away, whistling.

"I see," said Jim, smirking. "What about blowguns?" He motioned to a small wooden tube in his breast pocket. "Any good with those?"

"I've never used one."

Jim shrugged and turned away. "Pity," he called over his shoulder as he walked off. "Maybe you should learn. We're always on the lookout for new recruits. Even if you're a little old."

"I..." said Link. "Thanks?"

"Old isn't a compliment," called Jim, disappearing around a corner.  
Once Jim was definitely out of earshot, Link and Tatl exchanged looks.

"He's hiding something," said Link.

Tatl rolled her eyes. "Um, _duh_. Any idiot can see that. The Bombers are the worst secret keepers in Termina. The question is why."

"Do you think they're up to no good?"

"The Bombers? Nah, they're as goody two shoes as you can get. Maybe even more than you. If someone in Clock Town needs help, they'll help, all right. They let us into their oh-so-secret hideout in exchange for a game of _tag_, for crying out loud. So what do you think it means if they won't help us right now?"

"So... if they won't help us find him, he's... not in Clock Town?"

"That's a terrible... well, okay, that's not a bad guess given you have a brain the size of a peanut, but no. It means they're _already_ helping him. Whatever Kafei's done, the Bombers are involved somehow, _and _he doesn't want to be found."

Link raised his eyebrows dubiously. "How sure are you?"

"I know Jim," said Tatl confidently. "I'm sure."

Link considered for a few seconds, then reminded himself that he'd resolved to trust Tatl a little more often. "All right. I believe you."

"Flattered, I'm sure."

"Any ideas what to do next?"

"Oh, that's easy," said Tatl. "We have to kidnap Jim and torture him."

Link stopped dead. "I _beg_ your pardon?" he said.

"I said we have to kidnap Jim and torture him," said Tatl, rolling her eyes. "Are you deaf or something?" She caught Link's extremely dubious expression. "Look, I know it sounds a little extreme. But I've wanted to see that sucker get what's coming to him for _years_..." She grinned devilishly.

Link stared at Tatl in disbelief for a full ten seconds, then shook his head. "No. Absolutely not."

"What, like you've never kidnapped and tortured anyone before..."

"No, I have _not_."

"Really?" The faerie looked genuinely surprised. "What about just kidnapping someone? Or, um, just torturing?"

"New plan," said Link, cutting her off. "We go talk to one of the other Bombers."

"What? No way. That'll never work." Tatl shook her head. "A massive failure just waiting to happen. Let's just go..."

"You just told me the Bombers are the worst secret keepers ever."

Tatl winced. "Well, _yes_..."

"So how hard can it be?"

"Well... okay, but..." Tatl shot him a pleading look. _"Torture_. Maiming._"_

Link looked away, saying nothing.

There was something seriously wrong with that faerie. People weren't supposed to _like_ violence. He'd only ever met one person who took joy in the pain of others, and _he_ had been a monster so foul his mere presence blackened the sky with storm clouds. To see a touch of that same sadism, even if it was only a touch, in a companion he was coming increasingly to rely on, was disturbing indeed.

(He tried, for a second, to juxtapose Tatl's maniacal grins onto Navi's face, and succeeded in disturbing himself even further.)

Tatl prodded him.

"Something wrong?" she said.

"I was just thinking..." Link hesitated, began to invent a lie to cover, then decided he may as well say it. "I was thinking it's strange that you enjoy violence so much."

Tatl blinked. "Enjoy?" She hesitated, then laughed. "Kid, _everyone_ enjoys a little blood and gore from time to time. There's nothing strange about it. _You're_ the strange one, if you think about it. A killing machine who gets all maudlin at the sight of death? Puh-_leeze_."

Link tried to sneak a glance at her expression, but she was slightly ahead of him, and he couldn't see her face.

**-oOo-**

They found the same Bomber in roughly the same place. When they approached him, however, his manner was a lot less effervescent than before.

"I can't talk to you guys," he said, looking away quickly as they approached.

"What?" said Link. "Why not?"

"I... can't talk to you."

Link glanced at Tatl, shooting her a confused look.

"Three guesses why," muttered Tatl.

It clicked. "Jim...?"

"Geez, what a genius."

Link turned back to the Bomber. "Did Jim tell you not to talk to us?"

The Bomber looked away, shrugging guiltily.

"Look, it's all right," said Link. "We're just trying to help Kafei out. His family and his fiancée and everyone are really worried about him. We're trying to make some very sad people feel happy. You can talk to us."

"_More importantly_," interrupting Tatl, "if you talk to us, we won't tell Jim, will we?" She shot Link a look, as if this was obviously the first thing he should have thought of.  
The Bomber screwed up his eyes for a few seconds, then muttered, "Okayokay. But you can't tell Jim, okay? He was mad I was talking to you already."

"To me?" said Tatl, looking flattered. "Aw, that..."

"No, to, uh, you," said the Bomber, looking at Link. "He said he doesn't like nosy strangers."

"Jim called _him_ a nosy stranger?" said Tatl. "What'd he call me?"

"Maybe over here," said the Bomber, and he darted towards a dank, narrow lane between two shops.

Glancing at each other, Link and Tatl followed.

"Are we going to kidnap him now?" whispered Tatl as they marched into the alleyway.

"_No_," Link hissed back. "Why do you keep _asking_?"

"Oh, shut up, _nosy stranger_," grumbled Tatl. "You only got to talk to Jim because of _my_ connections."

Link was confused. "How does that..."

"Never mind."

The three of them walked through the alleyway until they rounded a bend and were out of sight of the main street.

"Okay," said the Bomber in a whisper. "I'll help you guys, because the Bombers help people, but you've got to _promise_ not to tell Jim."

"We promise," said Link.

"Yeah, _promise_," said Tatl, her tone of voice managing to suggest the exact opposite.

"So what's the missing guy's name?"

"It's Kafei," said Link, and spelt it out for him.

"Kafei? Um..." The boy paused, rubbing his chin. "I haven't heard that name before," he said. "Let me check..."

He pulled out a notebook from his belt and began riffling through.

"Hmm. Circus jugglers... circus acrobats... man with missing cat... green cap Deku... that Deku was Tatl's other friend from today," he explained to Link. "He was lost and wanted to find his parents at the observatory."

"Right," said Link, ignoring the loud snort from beside him.

"Dog racer... mail man... no, I can't see any Kafei here." The Bomber looked up apologetically. "Maybe he didn't come to us after all."

"Maybe he used a fake name?" suggested Link.

"Uh... what does he look like?" said the Bomber.

"He's a guy about _this _high..." Tatl flew up above both Link and the Bomber's heads to indicate. "Blue hair, swanky hair cut, probably expensive clothes..." she rattled off.

"Oh, _that's_ who Kafei is?" said the Bomber.

"You know him, then?" said Link.

"Yeah," said the Bomber, "he..."

He paused, looking around again, even though they were plainly alone in the alleyway.

"Just tell us," said Link, "I promise we won't tell Jim."

"It'd... it'd be breaking the Bomber's Oath," said the boy hesitantly. "I dunno..."

"Just tell us, for crying out loud," snapped Tatl.

For a second nobody said anything.

"This was a mistake," said the Bomber, his expression hardening. "Jim said you guys were trouble, I shouldn't..."

"It's a missing person!" said Link, exasperated. "Don't worry about what Jim said, just tell us..."

"See? You're trying to make me break the Bomber's Oath!" The boy looked at Tatl. "He's tryin' to make me break the Bomber's Oath."

"Bad influence, isn't he?" said Tatl before Link swatted at her.

"Look," said Link, "we just want to know what the Bombers know about Kafei's disappearance. Or not even that. Just enough to let his fiancée and his mother sleep safe and sound."

"I'm not talkin' to you!" said the Bomber. "And if you keep bugging me, I'm gonna..." He glanced both ways, as if checking there were no witnesses. "...I'm gonna _make _you wish you hadn't gone round bugging the Bombers!"

He took a step towards Link, pounded his fist against his palm.

Link tensed almost imperceptibly, and, equally imperceptibly, shifted his weight by a fraction so that it was perfectly even between his feet. Despite the fact that the Bomber clearly wasn't strong enough to so much as break Link's finger, the inflammatory gestures set all his hard-earned combat instincts on edge.

"Please," he said, trying to force himself to relax – he wasn't in Hyrule any more, it wasn't every man for himself – "Please, his family are all very upset. His fiancée too. They were going to get married, you know."

For a moment, the boy looked a little pained, but then he crossed his arms defiantly. "I can't tell you anything."

Link jumped at the opening. "So you _do_ know something-"

"No! No, Jim said – I mean, no! I told you, I don't know nothing about this Kafei person or where we're hiding nothing! Now _get lost_!"

With a stubbornly set chin the Bomber shoved Link hard on the chest.

Link's battle instincts roared with anger for a split second, and almost on autopilot his body began to move like the macabre machine the Seven Years War had turned him into. _Hurt but don't break_, he thought, staring at the boy and willing himself calm. _Hurt but don't break._ With those words resonating in his head his hand gently slipped over the Bomber's wrist.

In the village where Link had grown up there had been another boy named Mido. From the very beginning he hadn't liked Link, and he did his best to make life miserable for him. And Mido used all the tricks in the book to do so. _All _of them.

Most of the time Link tried fighting back, but Mido knew what he was doing far more than Link did – centuries' practice, perhaps – and nothing Link did seemed to have any effect. His flailing punches bounced off the older boy like straw. He tried turning Mido's armlocks and headlocks back upon him but the boy was as immovable as stone, and afterwards there was extra hell to pay.

It all seemed laughable now. Since leaving the village, Link had faced things far more threatening than a shove from a tree, far more painful than a strained wrist or a bruised jaw. But back then it really was the worst thing in the world.

In the evenings he spent hours alone in the woods, twisting his own arm in slow motion, trying to understand why it worked on him but not on Mido, which ways the human body could move and which ways it could not, and it was futile and it didn't make any sense to him and he thought to himself, _you're not cut out to fight, why bother_. Then one day something clicked in his head, in the first of what were to be many clicks in the face of many antagonists. And so the next time Mido tried shoving his breakfast into the mud, Link did to him what he was now doing to the Bomber kid: the same twist he'd tried before but using both hands in quick succession to get extra rotation – one, two, like turning a key with one hand always touching – and then with just the tiniest bit of forward pressure on the wrist-

"Owowowow!"

The Bomber almost toppled over but held his balance, shuffling around on his tiptoes as he tried to pull his wrist free of the lock. (In the corner of Link's eye he sensed Tatl's expression changing from listless to ecstatic, and he once again wondered whether her psychosis was going to rub off on him.)

"Let me go, let me go, I'll tell Jim, _ow_, ow, ow!"

Link fought to hold the Bomber steady. If the boy wasn't careful and made a sudden movement he could very well strain his own arm. "I'm sorry, just... please just tell us what happened to Kafei. It's really important."

"Let go... Jim said... we're not supposed to tell anyone... Bomber's oath..."

Link shook his head sympathetically. "Please. If he's in trouble we need to know. He's the _mayor's son_..."

"_Lame_," said Tatl, rolling her eyes.

"Excuse me?"

"You've got him in a choke hold and you're _asking _him _questions_?"

"It's not a choke hold, and what else should I be doing?"

"You're choking his arm. Same thing. And, you know, intimidate him!"

The Bomber's eyes were shifting nervously back and forth between the two of them as they talked.

"_Intimidate _him?" said Link.

"Yes, intimidate him! Look, all you... actually, you know what? Allow me."

She flew onto the Bomber's nose, getting his cross-eyed attention.

"Here's the deal, kid," she said. "You're going to tell us whatever you know, or my friend here is going to break your fingers. One. By. One."

(It was a testament to Link's self control that he didn't so much as raise an eyebrow at this.)

"I..." The Bomber squeaked. "I'm not supposed..."

"Then," continued Tatl, "he's going to break all the fingers on your other hand. And he's going to be smiling the whole time."

"Jim said... Bomber's Oath, we can't..."

"And then, once he's broken all your fingers, he's going to rip those fingers off _and eat them_."

Link's eyebrows shot all the way up past his cap.

"Okayokayokay I didn't mean that _don't let him eat me_," said the little Bomber boy, whose eyes looked as if they were about to pop right out of his head. "Please please just let me go I don't wanna die I don't want him to eat my fingers..."

"It's all right," said Link, shooting Tatl a look, "no one's going to eat anyone." He relaxed the torque on the kid's wrist slightly. "Now where is Kafei?"

"I don't know if it's your Kafei or not, but..." The Bomber's eyes darted around, making sure no one else was watching. "There _was_ a creepy guy who us Bombers helped hide a while ago."

"Blue hair?" said Link. "Five foot ten?"

The Bomber gave a tiny shrug. "I dunno about hair. It was real dark. But I don't _think_ he was that tall..."

"Then what makes you think it was him?" said Tatl. "You just making this up?"

"No, no, no!" The Bomber squeaked slightly. "I just..."

"Because my friend here is getting _hungry_..."

"_Tatl_," said Link.

"When we hid him away, Jim got us to help carry his bags. They were _real_ heavy. They had, um... the shape? The special squiggly shape that the Mayor uses."

"The mayoral seal?" suggested Tatl.  
"The may-rules eel," nodded the Bomber. His eyes were wide and earnest. "I thought maybe he worked for the mayor or something."

"Where did you hide Kafei?" said Link.

The kid shook his head. "No... I can't. Jim will..."

"Fingers," said Tatl sternly.

"But... but Jim said..."

"_Fingers_."

"The laundry pool!" squeaked the Bomber, his face as white as a sheet. "He's in a house behind the laundry pool."

"Which house?" said Link.

Tatl waved him off. "I know the one," she said. She fixed the Bomber with a stern look. "You promise you're not lying to us?"

"I promise!" said the Bomber, nodding frantically. "Pinky swear."

He waved his free hand in Tatl's direction, little finger extended, then, realising her size, retracted it.

Tatl smirked. "Well, I think we're done here. Let him go, bruiser."

"_Bruiser_?" said Link, his hands sliding off the Bomber's wrist.

The younger boy didn't waste a second, bolting away from them as fast as his legs would take them.

"And if you even think of telling Jim, my friend here _won't hesitate_!" Tatl called after him.

Link watched the Bomber dashing away until his footsteps had long since faded.

"Was all that _really_ necessary?" he said.

"You're welcome," said the faerie.

* * *

**A/N:** Um, yeah. Hi. :)

To everyone who reviewed or emailed, thanks for the well wishes and encouragement. My arms are much better now and I'm being careful to avoid a relapse. Apologies once again for the delay since the last real chapter, and sorry if you lost track of what was going on. But let's be honest here - do you really read this fic for the story and the character development, or do you just Ctrl-F for all of Tatl's lines? Yeah, thought so :P

Sifl-senpai drew some amazing fanart for this fic, which I've linked in my profile. Go check it out right now. (What's the difference between MM fanart and MM novelisation fanart? No idea, but omgomgomg i can haz fanart :D :D :D *squuuueeeee*)

Lenore promised me a crackfic, failed to deliver, then somehow ended up proofreading this chapter despite all my protests. (Normally I would decline offers to proofread, but it was that or being bludgeoned to death with an ocarina. Now you all know my secret weakness: severe head trauma.)

Next chapter: Link does stuff! Tatl does stuff! _OR DO THEY?_


	37. Beyond His Years

**INSOMNIA****  
****based ****on **_**The **__**Legend **__**of **__**Zelda**__**: **__**Majora**__**'**__**s **__**Mask**_

**The ****Laundry ****Pool****  
****Clock ****Town**

The laundry pool lay close to the town square. On another day one might have encountered wives and daughters kneeling by the edge of the slow-flowing stream, chatting gaily as their hampers of weeks-old clothing burst into clouds of mud and grime in the water. Today, however, it was raining, and as a certain child and faerie passed the pool, its surface was churning ferociously.

"Just think," said Tatl. "If you were wearing your Deku mask, you'd be lapping this rain up right now."

"I suppose," said Link. "But I'm not."

The house the little Bomber kid had directed them to sat on the far side of the laundry pool, looking for all the world like nobody had lived there in decades. A tiny path along the water's edge (with the sheer vertical brick of the town walls beside it) led the way to its front door.

As they got closer, Link frowned. The place looked very dishevelled - not at all the kind of place he'd have expected a mayor's son to be hiding out.

(Assuming, he reminded himself, that this elusive Kafei was still alive...)

"We're here on the word of a boy younger than me," he said, vaguely disbelievingly.

"He sounded pretty convinced," said Tatl.

"What exactly was with that, anyway?" said Link. "You scared him half to death."

"Hey, if I recall correctly, which I do, _you_ were the one who put him in that ninja hold..."

"We were trying to find Kafei; the Bomber was getting violent. I just wanted to make sure that..."

"Double standards, that's what this is," smirked Tatl.

"No, it's..." Link sighed and shook his head. It was too complicated to explain. "You said you knew this building. Is it safe to go in?"

"It's Bombers property. Used to be booby trapped like mad a few decades ago."

"Booby trapped?" said Link. "Are we talking poison? Blades?..."

Tatl gave him a weird look. "As in buckets of water on door frames. I mean, really." She puffed out her chest indignantly. "You manage to make _everything _sound so macabre."

"_What__?_" Against his better judgement, Link rose to the bait. "You're the one who just told someone I'd _eat __his __fingers_."

"That _was_ kind of hilarious, though, you've got to admit."

"Do you actually _enjoy_ violence?"

Tatl rolled her eyes. "You tell me, killer."

The air turned palpably frosty.

Link struggled to find his next words. "I... Do you..."

Tatl waved her hands in front of him, cutting him off. "Okay, okay, that was harsh. I take that back."

"Do you think I _like_..."

"I said I _take __it __back_! Sheesh, listen why don't you."

Link was flabbergasted. "You can't just say that and then expect me to... We've already been through this! I'm not a monster. I..."

Tatl yawned. "_Boring_. Tell you what. I'm going to have a peek through the windows upstairs, see if there's any, I dunno, clues lying around. Dead bodies or whatnot."

Without waiting for a response, she shot straight up into the air, becoming invisible amongst the thickening rain, and leaving Link alone to ruminate.

A minute later, the faerie returned, settling gently onto Link's shoulder with a slight splash.

"There's someone inside," she said.

"Kafei?" said Link.

Tatl ran a hand along one of her waterlogged wings. "I dunno. Fogged glass. Can barely see a thing through there."

"Okay..." said Link. "So then if it is Kafei, we can probably knock and just talk. But if not..."

"We're not knocking," said Tatl.

"Why?"

Tatl counted off on her fingers. "Because firstly, for all I trust the Bombers not to mix with the wrong sort, chances are it's _not_ Kafei, and instead it's the person who kidnapped him or whatever, and better safe than sorry. Secondly, if it is Kafei, well... anyone who totally disappeared from everyone who cared about him probably isn't going to just have a polite conversation with a stranger knocking at their door."

Link blinked. Tatl _could_ be useful to have around. He needed to stop forgetting this.

"Thanks," he said. "I... So how do we flush the person out?"

"Flush out? We've given up on talking?"

"Until we know more," agreed Link.

"Well, they've got to go outside _sometime_, right? We could just outwait 'em. Or... I dunno. Make a distraction? Between the two of us I'm sure we can make a bit of a ruckus outside."

Link nodded.

Neither of them moved from where they were.

"It's fascinating," said Tatl after a pause.

"I... Pardon me?"

"Seeing you destroy things. It's fascinating."

"So what does make you happy, then?" said Link absent-mindedly.

"Oh, everything," said Tatl immediately.

Link arched an eyebrow. "Everything," he repeated.

"What, that doesn't sound like me?" said Tatl. "Too out of character for old misery-guts ultra-serious Tatl?"

"It sounds exactly like you," said Link. "I just didn't expect you to be so... _honest_ about it."

Tatl cackled delightedly. "You know, I think we may finally be on the same wavelength, Deku boy."

"_Link_."

"I'm gonna go scout again!"

"My name is..." Link left the sentence hanging as Tatl zipped up past him and towards the upper level.

Alone to his own devices again, he smiled wanly. She was no Navi, but for all her faults, Tatl was certainly a lively companion to have around.

There was a squeaking noise from high above. Link looked up, squinting through the rain, and saw Tatl streaking like a bullet back towards him.

"They're gone!" she barked.

"Gone?"

"Yesyes, the person inside is _gone_, I can't see anyone anymore, they must be _coming__downstairs_. They could be opening the door any moment!"

Link froze for a second, calculating. If it was Kafei coming out, he might be amenable to reason. On the other hand, if it wasn't, and something more sinister was afoot...

It was Tatl who made the decision for him. "Come on, doofus!" she said, smacking his ear with a tiny hand. "Get going!"

Link nodded and in the same motion spun around and started sprinting back down the path he'd arrived along. But it was far too long; a few hundred feet until the bridge that led back to the main half of the laundry pool, and not a single hiding place or plausible excuse in between here or there.

A split second later, he heard the rattling of a lock behind him, saw the bridge far too far away to hide, and his eyes naturally drifted to the stream churning beside him.

_Oh__, __what __the __hell_, he thought, and with the tiniest twist of his body jumped into the water. The torrential rain had softened the surface, making Link's plunge underneath smooth and silent.

Below the frothing surface, the world took on a different character. The muffled drone of the rainstorm. Grey rays of light from overhead danced around Link as the pellets of water buffeted down.

With his eyes wide open and his breath held deep, Link saw the silhouette of a person pass by. He couldn't make out much at all.

When what felt like long enough had passed, and Link's lungs were crying out for air, Link resurfaced. Gasping in a deep breath, he looked both ways to see a figure distantly retreating.

"Are they gone?" he said, _sotto __voce_.

No response came, and he looked around sharply, searching for Tatl's telltale yellow glow.

"Tatl?"

With one fluid movement, Link heaved himself out of the water, climbing up into a crouch on the path. He felt his heart quicken. The rain was thick but he should at least have been able to see a glimpse of the faerie...

"Tatl?" he tried again.

A loud spluttering noise from behind him made him jump.

"Tatl?" Link spun around. "Where are you? Are you..."

"Get inside," she said, again from behind him. "Just get in."

The door wasn't locked and Link stepped in, shutting it quickly behind him. There was nothing but a single wooden staircase before him, leading up to a second floor landing with the dim flicker of candlelight.

With a groan (which, despite all odds, still managed to sound exaggerated), Tatl dropped to the ground behind him with a quick splash.

"Are you okay?" said Link immediately, turning around yet again.

She must have been holding onto his back the whole time, he realised — including his dive underwater. From what he remembered of Navi's grim expression during their every expedition to the Zora Domain, faeries did not find being submerged ideal.

Tatl shot him a furious look. "I'm fine. Pick me up, will you?"

Link scooped her up in hands. She was dripping water like an ice cube on a hearth, and a great deal heavier than she'd ever felt when perched on his shoulder.

"You can't fly? Are you sure you didn't drown or...?"

"Yes you doofus I am sure I did not drown to death. I'm a faerie. I am made of magical energies you can't even comprehend. I don't need air to breathe."

Link nodded and started up the stairs. "But then why can't you-"

"We need air to _fly_. I think I just put on a couple of pounds in water."

The staircase ended and Link stepped through the only door on the landing to arrive in what looked like small living quarters. Candles flickered on a desk next to writing utensils. What looked like a map sat on the desk as well. Crates and barrels piled up among the sides of the room. On top of them were an assortment of sundry items: a letter opener, a dirty plate with a half-eaten chicken leg, a few leather bound books. Nothing, however, seemed to provide any immediate clues about Kafei.

"Set me down, would you?" said Tatl, indicated a nearby crate.

Link obliged, and turned his head as the faerie began to shake off more water than seemed physically possible.

Tatl grimaced. "Warn me next time you decide to dive into a freezing river."

"Why were you holding onto my back in the first place?" said Link, stepping further into the room. He spared a glance at the map on the desk. Besides a mark on its left saying 'to Termina Field' it didn't have any landmarks he recognised

"_Warn __me __next __time __you __decide __to __dive __into __a __freezing __river__, __Link__!_" she screeched.

"But why were..."

"_WARN __ME__._"

"Sorry. I'm really sorry. I didn't realise you were..."

"Oh god don't you dare get _soppy_ on me," Tatl groaned. "Just... ugh."

"I'll warn you next time," said Link. "I honestly didn't realise you were holding onto my back. I thought you'd flown out of the way."

"Seriously. This is what happens when you start sticking your nose into other people's business. Could we get back to saving the world now? At least none of this temple-monsters-giants business requires us to go _underwater_—"

A loud _bang_ interrupted them. The door downstairs had just been slammed shut. The house's occupant had returned.

"_Hide_!" hissed Tatl.

Link cast his eyes around, saw nothing but a cramped space underneath the desk, and shook his head. "Bad idea," he whispered back.

The stairs creaked. The newcomer was already halfway up.

It was a done deal. They were going to be found one way or another. The only question was — if this person _was_ Kafei, did they want to spook him?

Link made up his mind.

"_Hello_?" he said loudly.

The footsteps paused for a second. Then, slightly slower, they resumed.

"Please tell me you know what you're doing," whispered Tatl.

Link opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again. No need to worry her more than necessary.

The first thing Link saw rounding the bend was a faded yellow animal mask that looked like a cross between a rat's head and a fox's. Then, as the rest of its wearer came into view, Link's stomach tightened, a low note of suspicion resonating at his core.

This wasn't Kafei. This was a boy of about Link's size (a fraction slimmer, a fraction taller), an envelope in his hand which seemed to have escaped the worst of the rain. He wore a purple vest over a simple white shirt, both now dripping wet.

The tiniest movement of the boy's mask hinted that he was scrutinising Link and Tatl just as carefully as they were him.

Otherwise, he was utterly unreadable as he stepped over the threshold in the room and stopped, feet level, hands folded like a dignitary.

For a few unnerving seconds, nobody spoke.

Then:

"Can I help you?" said the other boy.

He took a step towards them, still well across the room from them, and in that single movement Link's instinctual assessment of the boy changed entirely. The boy's voice was so soft and cultured, his body language so polite and unassuming, that if Link didn't instinctively watch for such things, he would have missed the way the boy's body tilted every-so-slightly away from them and towards the letter opener sitting on a crate two arm lengths away. That was _not_ a good sign.

"I've seen him before," Tatl breathed into Link's ear. "Without the mask."

Link registered the words and gave the tiniest nod of his head, keeping his attention firmly on the newcomer.

"Clock Town, a day from now," Tatl continued. "He seemed to know us."

Link motioned for her to be quiet. "We're friends," he said, his eyes firmly fixed on the threat. The part of his brain responsible for keeping him alive was studiously noting down details. _Too narrow a room for proper swordwork. Too close to draw an arrow in time. Parchment on desk. Quill, ink on desk. Ceramic mug on desk. Candle, unlit, on desk. Chair too heavy to manoeuvre quickly._

"I have no friends," said the boy, and through the mask it was impossible to tell if that was said with any irony.

"We're looking for Kafei."

"The Bombers or Sakon?"

Link furrowed his brow. "What?"

The boy drew back his shoulders. "Who sent you: the Bombers, or Sakon?"

"Neither," said Link. "Who's Sakon?"

"Nobody nice," Tatl informed him in a low voice.

The air was grim with silence. The boy retrieved the letter opener with a slow, deliberate movement. Without taking his eyes from Link and Tatl, he worked open the envelope he was carrying. _Normal right-handed grip; firm at the hand, relaxed along the arm. Possibly trained._

"So who sent you, then?" he said evenly.

"Anju," said Link. "She's Kafei's..."

The boy turned his head towards them impassively, and Link felt a chill run down his spine at the expressionless gaze of his mask.

"Anju, you say?" the boy said (and _something_ in his body language changed, and Link's heart was pounding even more than before). "She must... trust you quite a lot to confide in you."

"I... suppose," said Link.

"What can I say?" said Tatl, rolling her eyes. "We're just trustable."

"Have you known Anju for long?"

With flawless confidence, Tatl nodded. "Oh, yeah. Anju and us? We go back ages—"

There it was again, and this time Link consciously registered it: the boy's grip on the letter opener tightening a fraction, his fingers a sliver more pale. At the same time, he recognised the masked boy's tone of voice: it was exactly the same tone of voice he would have used on someone whose word he didn't trust, baiting them into a lie–

"I see," said the masked boy, and he took a casual step in their direction–

"Wait," said Link-

-but by the time the word had made it to his lips it was far too late.

The boy lunged, his yellow mask arcing across the room for Link like the frontier of a landslide. The tension that had been building up within Link disappeared at once, replaced with a strange feeling of comfort. An armed assailant. _This_was something he understood how to react to.

Link's hand glided over the writing desk, scooping up the closest practical item, a copper candle dish. He dropped his weight as the other boy closed the distance.

All this took over half a second to happen.

"_Link_! Look out, he's got..." shrieked Tatl, as:

The boy handled the letter opener like a fencer, stabbing rather than slashing, the blade dancing at the end of his right arm towards Link's veins and arteries.

Link blocked with the dish in his hand, deflecting the blade gently twice before ramming the flat of the dish into the other boy's radial bone on the third strike. The boy recoiled at the shock of the impact, but when Link tried to follow through with another blunt strike to the blade hand, he was met with a wild but effective knife movement that forced more distance between them.

"...a knife I oh my gods _don__'__t __attack_ we're _just __here __to __talk _I swear if you..."

Link backed further away, dish striking the letter opener metal-on-metal as he retreated, past where he remembered the chair being. He stepped sideways and there it was: an obstacle between the two of them.

For a few moments they both circled around the chair, eyeing each other, the boy feinting lightly with the letter opener but never committing to a blow. Link crouched, waiting.

"...hurt Link then I will... oh gods..."

The boy stabbed again, his arm stretching out over the chair, and taking a calculated risk Link sidestepped, slipped his left hand onto the boy's knife wrist before the stabbing motion had even been completed, and clung on for dear life. The boy tried to get his hand free, and Link held his ground, stepping further around the chair, making the most of the obstacle. Link flailed at the boy's arm with the dish, trying to bash it into loosening its grip, but no such luck.

When the boy gave a particularly large tug, Link didn't resist but moved _with_ him, and, stepping off the chair as a springboard, simultaneously elbowed the boy in the side of the head and kneed him in the chest. It was an unpracticed manoeuvre, missing both the jawbone and the solar plexus, but the force of the blow was enough to knock his mask off and send them both flying backwards.

The two of them landed together on the floor: the other boy on his back, Link on top of his chest with his left hand still firmly controlling the boy's knife wrist. The boy headbutted him hard in the face but Link held on-

"I... oh gods..." Tatl cupped her hands over her mouth, clearly distraught.

-and since they were evenly matched for strength Link didn't bother trying to attack the knife hand directly but again elbowed the boy in the head, once, twice, and the next time he tried to lever the letter opener away it skidded out of the boy's hand across the floor.

"Wait!" the boy cried.

They both stopped moving where they were. It must have been a strange sight: Link, clad in a dirty green tunic, his sword and shield completely inert during the scuffle, and, straddled underneath him, the other boy in his clean-pressed vest and cold demeanour, with all the fight gone from him but still glaring frostily up at Link and Tatl.

With the mask gone Link had a better look at the boy's face: gleaming red eyes, a sharp nose. He looked about Link's age: ten, give or take a year.

(And Tatl was right, he realised; they _had_ met him before. A couple of days ago from their perspective; tomorrow from the boy's.)

"We don't want any trouble," Link said. "Just tell us who you are and what you know about Kafei."

The boy took a few seconds to catch his breath, then, in a steady voice, said: "Get off of me."

"_Excuse_ me?" said Link.

"You are crushing. My chest. Get up."

Tatl laughed, sounding more than a little scared. "No shredding _way_."

"You just drew a knife on me," said Link levelly. "You tried to kill me. If I give you half a chance, how do I know you're not going to do the same again?"

The boy looked Link right in the eye.

He said, "You have my word."

Link paused, considering.

Knowing him all too well, Tatl groaned. "Don't tell me you _trust_..."

Watching carefully for any surprise attack, Link stood and stepped back, kicking the letter opener into a distant corner. With a warning look towards the boy, he drew his bow and held an arrow loosely in place: not quite threatening, but ready to move if need be.

"We just want to talk," he reiterated.

"'Just talk'?" said the boy. He, too, climbed to his feet, with slow, wary movements. "You're a second away from shooting me in the chest."

"You just tried to slice me open," said Link. "I don't trust you, but I don't want any unnecessary bloodshed here either."

"You _lied_. I know Anju's oldest friends, and you aren't one of them. Who _are_ you people?"

"So you're a friend of Anju?" said Tatl, eyes narrowing. "What kind of _friend_ would get involved with her fiance's disappearance?"

"You first," said the boy.

"You're not exactly in a position to negotiate," said Tatl. (In an aside to Link, she muttered: "You _can_ shoot him, right?", to which Link nodded imperceptibly.)

"Go ahead, then. Kill me. Maim me." The boy took a single step forwards, hands spread. "Hell, I _invite_ you."

"Don't take another step," said Link warningly.

"If you wanted me dead, you'd already have killed me," said the boy. He took another step forward, and Link raised his weapon, arrow ready but bowstring loose. "Who sent you? What do you want with me?"

"We want to find Kafei. We're friends of..."

The boy's eyebrow arched a fraction.

"...We met Anju yesterday," Link amended. "She was upset. We also met Kafei's mother yesterday. She was..."

("A pompous pig," said Tatl.)

"...also upset. We wanted to help."

The boy looked Link and Tatl up and down slowly, then nodded and stepped back. With an inward sigh, Link relaxed his hold on his bow.

"How did you find this place?" said the boy.

"We answered one of your questions," said Link. "What do you know about Kafei?"

The boy averted his eyes.

"You just tried to kill us," said Link. "We've answered your questions. You owe us some answers."

"I don't owe anyone anything," said the boy, turning away.

"What about Anju?" interjected Tatl. "What about his wife-in-waiting, wife-to-be, whatever the word is? What about all of his friends and her friends? What happened? Did he get cold feet? Did you do something to him?"

"Go to hell," muttered the boy.

Link tried again. "Look, if he's... if something bad's happened to him, if his family need to be told... They're just terrified. We're _just __trying __to __help_. Just _tell __us __what __you __know_ about Kafei's disapp-"

The boy whipped around and snapped:

"I _**am**_ Kafei!"

Silence.

The statement was preposterous. And yet... Link looked into the boy's eyes and couldn't find a trace of deceit.

"You're not lying, are you," he muttered, mostly to himself.

The boy – Kafei – turned away, shoulders slumping like an athlete who had just tossed a great weight to the ground.

"The Kafei we're looking for is an adult," said Tatl slowly. "You're... when I look at you I just see..."

"A child?" said Kafei, eyes looking away. "I looked like this a long time ago. Years before I met Anju. I was cursed, turned into this by..."

"...an imp," finished Link, comprehension dawning. "An imp wearing a mask, yes?"

Kafei looked at them sharply. "You know the imp?"

(_"Now that's a good look for you!" said Skull Kid, in that mocking, mirthful voice of his, as Link tried to climb to his feet – but his legs were all wrong and his head felt too heavy for the rest of him. "You'll stay here looking that way forever..."_)

"Yes," said Link.

"He..." said Tatl. For a moment it sounded as if she was about to say something in defence of her old friend, but something about the look shared on Kafei and Link's faces kept her silent.

"He turned me into... into..." Kafei splayed his fingers in front of his face, flexing them experimentally. "It's not like I _minded_ my childhood. I got along well with all sorts of people. But that's not _me_ anymore."

"I'm so sorry-" began Link.

Kafei held up a hand, silencing them.

"I can't explain what it's like. You're young. You've never known what it's like to see your body change before your eyes. Even if only gradually."

(Tatl opened her mouth; Link shook his head quickly.)

"But it doesn't just feel like I've become smaller. It feels like I've lost the last few decades of my life. Most of my friends wouldn't possibly stop to think that some child wandering the streets at chest level could possibly be me, Kafei. My own _fiance_ wouldn't recognise me in a crowded street. Anju..."

He trailed off wistfully.

"She's quite a woman," he said sadly.

"Why not tell her?" said Tatl. "She's a human. You're all sentimental pansies. She'd understand."

"I was going to. I knew I needed a familiar face to ride this out with. Someone who'd understand, if I could just make her believe me... I'm sure she would have. She's known me since I looked like... this."

"But on my way there, minding my own business, I was blindsided. Robbed." The boy's fists clenched. "It would never have happened if I was in my _real_ body. I can fend for myself. But that bastard — Sakon, I _know_ it was Sakon, hood or no hood — overpowered me and took everything I had on me."

"Well..." Tatl stammered. "You're just careless. You're like my partner here. He couldn't hold onto a coin to save his life."

Kafei grimaced. "I _wish_ it was just money. He stole my mask..." — he followed Link and Tatl's gaze and shook his head — "no, not that. My... my sun mask."

Tatl inhaled sharply.

"Your...?" said Link.

"It's a wedding tradition," said Tatl quietly. "If a couple unites during the Festival of Time wearing masks they've made — the sun and the moon — it's supposed to bring good luck. If they _don__'__t_... worse, if a mask is _lost_ before the ceremony..."

"...then their union is doomed," finished Kafei. "When Sakon stole that mask from me, he stole my last chance at happiness. He may as well have killed me."

"So that's why you thought Sakon sent us," Link said. "You must hate him."

"You don't _say_, mister detective," muttered Tatl darkly.

"Before all this began I was quite happy. I was targeted because of what I had been turned into. In a matter of days the world conspired to take away everything I actually cared about. My friends. My love. My respect.

"The only place I could turn was the Bombers. It's been a long time since I ran with them, but I think their leader recognised me. He didn't ask any questions, though. They cleared out this place for me, gave me a little food and a little privacy. And they promised that they'd keep me informed of Sakon's movements if he resurfaced. Which the bastard will. Eventually. I can't face my fiance again until I have my mask back.

"And even then I'm still trapped like this. The Great Faerie said there was nothing she could do for me, until she went missing too. And meanwhile I sit here. Waiting. Seeing this face reflected in the river every time I step outside... Thank the Goddesses it was raining today."

He turned to face them, his mouth set in a cold line. "So I ask you: what do _you_ want from me?"

Link couldn't help it: he averted his eyes.

Beside him, Tatl managed a few words:

"Oh my. I..."

Tatl's voice faltered. Her eyes traced the length of the room, looking anywhere but at its inhabitants.

"I pity you," she whispered.

The words sounded more sincere than anything Link had ever heard her say before, yet they still rang hollow.

She held Kafei's glance for the briefest of moments then looked away, chewing her lip.

Kafei's mouth twitched. "Well," he said.

"I..." began Link.

The words were left hanging. '_I __understand__'? '__I __know __what __it__'__s __like__'?_ Waking up one day as a child and the next as an adult, stepping into a tree as a boy and emerging a killer... it was perhaps worse, perhaps better, than what Kafei was going through. But it was incomparable. No two kinds of pain were the same.

"I'm sorry," said Link. And in a moment of self-awareness he wondered what had been going through Tatl's mind when she had paused mid-speech.

"So am I," said Kafei.

He turned and walked towards the fogged window and used a single slim hand to wipe a sliver clear.

"How is she?" he said, to no one in particular.

Behind him, Link and Tatl exchanged a glance.

"She's worried for you," said Link.

Kafei squeezed his eyes shut.

"Of course she is..." he exhaled, sounding a little more broken than he had a moment before.

After a moment of silence and a further moment of uncertainty, Link set down his bow and walked slowly to join Kafei. He didn't know what to say; he didn't say anything. Instead, he laid a single hand on the blue-haired boy's shoulder, and joined him in watching the rain. If Kafei was startled by the movement, he gave no outward sign.

Link wasn't sure how long they remained there: Kafei, at the window; he, at his side; Tatl, circling the air above them like a buzzard.

The boy — man — whatever he was — had the breathing control of a swordmaster. Such sangfroid and emptiness in the body of one so young: it left Link with a disquieting feeling in his stomach.

"I can't go out yet," said Kafei.

Link opened his mouth to disagree and found himself nodding instead.

"Is there anything we can do?" said Tatl, and it had been so long since she had spoken and her voice was so sincerely concerned that Link almost didn't recognise it.

"No... no, I don't think so," said Kafei.

He turned around to face them, and his eyes were not a child's at all.

"You two should go," he said.

Link momentarily struggled for words. "I... Anju. She _is_ worried. What do we tell her?"

"You can't tell her anything," said Kafei.

"But she... You can't hide like this forever..."

"Please." Kafei's mouth was set. "Knowing would make it worse for her. How could I... how could anyone expect her to love _this_?" He gestured at himself.

"Well..." said Tatl uncertainly. "You know what they say. First you have to learn to love yourse—"

Kafei cut her off with the most withering look Link had ever seen.

"...yeah, maybe we should go," she said. She looked to her companion. "Link?"

Link was rooted to the spot, unseeing. It was only when he dimly remembered where they had first seen Kafei (their past; his tomorrow morning) that he found himself able to believe that this strange, broken man would be okay left alone.

"We'll go," he said, barely a whisper.

(Kafei didn't say anything as they stepped away from him. He didn't say anything as they descended the staircase and stepped out into the rain and put him out of sight. Not one word.)

* * *

**A/N:** I write stories that I want to read.

This isn't an apology, although I do owe you all one. This story would never have gotten as far as it has without all your encouragement. Nor is this an excuse for the delay: holding myself to unrealistic standards may be a *small* part of the reason I didn't get this chapter out for the nine months it took. Being surrounded by other commitments and obligations away from the internet may have also been a small part. In truth, the biggest reason this took so long is the same reason so many things take so long for me to finish - I didn't force myself to start.

What I am trying to say is that my favourite kind of story is not serial fiction that starts off strong and trickles to a halt. I like instant gratification. I like endings, be they happy or sad. I have invested so much time into Insomnia *as a reader* (its most critical reader, even) that I'd be heartbroken to see it stop.

So yeah. My life may be a little insane these days, but this is still happening.

In the meantime - what fiction and etc. have you people been up to lately? In terms of Zelda fanfic, if you aren't already familiar with _The Silent Kingdom_, it's a must read: it's a post-TP adventure story that is vastly original scope and yet weaves brilliantly with canon. In other fandoms, _Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality_ is a brilliantly novel HP fanfic (and I don't even read HP fanfic normally!) that mixes intrigue, magic, maths and contemporary philosophy in the most crazily geektastic way. Lenore (who also proofread the chapter, bless her heart if she actually has one) recently got me hooked onto _Homestuck_, which is wonderful for the music / dialogue / characters / epicness / artistry / fan-involvement / plot-intricacy (pick one) alone, and is ridiculously amazing when you combine the lot. _Amaryllis Night and Day_ is an actual published fiction book (I know: fiction outside the Internet!) which leapt off the page the same way chocolate fudge melts in one's mouth.

Discussing Skyward Sword in a review will result in my eternal dislike... I haven't seen past the second boss yet. Buuuuussssy :(

Thank you to everyone who posted encouragement and "are you dead yet?" messages. Apparently I need the constant reminder that I have an audience to satisfy =/ Well wishes, and hopefully you won't be waiting nine months again this time.

-tiki


	38. Sinew and Steel

**INSOMNIA  
based on **_**The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask**_

[_In the land of Hyrule there echoes a legend. Held dearly by the Royal Family, it tells of a boy who **battled evil** and saved Hyrule. The legends do not tell of the **scars** that the horrors of war left on the mind of this **ten-year old boy**. They merely say that he crept away from the land that had forged him._

_But the mantle of **hero** is not so easily shaken._

_Robbed, cursed, and left to rot, **Link** joined with the slightly-unhinged faerie **Tatl** on a quest to save her brother and stop the moon from crushing the land of **Termina**. They had **only three days** to thwart the **Skull Kid**, who had long since succumbed to the dark power of **Majora's Mask**._

_Though their **journey** was theirs alone, they met many people along the way. There was a farm run by the **sisters Cremia and Romani**, who seemed to have met them **before they did**. The **Gorons**, fearsome rock monsters of the **mountains**, were being laid siege by an **unnatural blizzard**. And, in between stocking up on supplies in Clock Town, Link and Tatl discovered the hiding place of the mayor's missing son. **Cursed** into the form of a **child**, **Kafei** hid from the world, fearing the scorn of everyone he knew... though **perhaps**, a day in his **future** and several in Link's **past**, he might begin to muster the courage to face his demons._

_But for the time being, Link and Tatl still needed to **arm themselves** for their trip to the forbidding **citadel** at **Snowhead**._]

**-oOo-**

**The Laundry Pool  
Clock Town**

If anything, the inclement weather had gotten even worse while Link and Tatl were talking to Kafei. As they stepped outside they were greeted with sheets of rainwater battering down from steeped roofs. Cold and wet, it immediately put a frown onto Tatl's face.

"I really don't want to go outside," the faerie said.

"That's not really an option," said Link, as he eased the door shut behind them.

"Well, how about we at least..."

Tatl stopped, staring at something behind him.

"Something wrong?" said Link, turning around.

"You could say that." She pointed. "See who's over there?"

Link peered through the rain. Down the path and across the bridge, there was a woman sitting on a bench: long red hair, a matching dress and umbrella, a slumped, defeated posture that was unmistakeably...

"That... is that Anju? Kafei's fiance?" he said.

_She can't have_ also_ found Kafei_, Link thought: her husband-to-be was almost unrecognisable as a child. Now that he looked, it seemed Anju wasn't paying any attention to the house.

She was sitting on the bench, talking to a...

_...to a Deku scrub and a yellow faerie seated beside her._

Link blinked.

"That's us," he said.

"You don't shredding say," said Tatl.

"But how..."

Link caught himself. _The Song of Time. Naturally._ They'd first met Anju — were first meeting Anju? — while he was still trapped in his Deku form. He was looking at their past selves, he realised.

"This is a golden opportunity," said Tatl.

Link gave her a quizzical look.

"Well," she said, "we have our past selves right there. We can help them; help ourselves; whatever! We'll tell them what's going on with everything — Skull Kid, the giants, the time travel — and that way we can make sure everything goes better next time round."

"But that... wasn't what happened," said Link.

"Nope!" Tatl nodded, then seeing the grim look on Link's face, added, "...so?"

"So we can't do that. It wouldn't work; it would be changing history."

"Is this another one of your time travel rules?"

"They're not _my_ rules," said Link. He tried to explain: "Look, say we went and told past-you and past-me about everything we've done so far. All the mistakes we made, wasting time in the swamp, all the things we learned in Woodfall and the mountains."

"Mhmm, and?"

"Then if past-you and past-me go ahead and do something different with their time instead, then later on they won't have made those mistakes to warn us about. So they can't become us and go back in time."

"And that's bad because...?"

"Because that's not what happened. When we were _them_, we didn't see any future selves. We didn't even know there was any time travel going on yet. So whatever we do next, we need to make sure they don't see us. Because otherwise, we'll be changing history..."

Tatl looked dubious. "...and then what, something bad will happen?"

"I'm not sure exactly what," said Link, "but, yes, I am pretty sure bad things would happen."

"Like... what? We get struck down by lightning? We black out and we're suddenly back here and nothing's changed? We get teleported to the middle of the desert and eaten by worms? We accidentally destroy all of existence? Exactly _how_ bad are we talking?"

"I'd rather not find out." Link shrugged. "Look, we can't change history. That's the rules. Messing with time is... not something I'd like to try ag— at all."

"So what are we going to do, then?" said Tatl. "Burrow underground and sneak past them? Or maybe you want me to teach you to fly over the town walls?"

Link had already been thinking about this. "We — well, _I_ — use this," he said, motioning to the Goron mask on his belt. "I'll walk straight past them as a Goron. They won't recognise me; everything will be fine."

"I don't remember seeing Goron-you either. Won't that mess up the fabric of time too?"

"There _was_ no Goron-me back then," said Link. "Maybe we didn't notice."

"And if they — we — _do_ notice?"

"It won't happen."

"Or the universe collapses?"

Link grimaced. "_Or_ that. But, I mean, probably not."

"So if there's still that risk anyway, what's the harm in going up to them and talking?"

"But _that's not what happened_."

Tatl gave him a look.

Link ignored her as he took the mask from his belt.

The pain wasn't the hardest part of putting on the Goron mask. It was excruciating, like feeling his blood expand into diamonds slicing inside of his veins, but he had experienced enough of the masks that he could tell himself it would only be over in a few seconds.

No, the hardest part was forcing himself not to scream.

_-pain, nerves ossifying, tendons cramping and folding in on themselves, neck collapsing to a disk, pain-_

Link opened his eyes, holding out his hands for balance as they refocused to suit his face's new shape.

He tensed and flexed his limbs, getting a sense for how his weight had been redistributed. After a few seconds, he nodded to Tatl.

"Let's go," he said.

"You first," said Tatl, settling onto his shoulder.

Hunched over, head down, Link started along the path. At the last minute he remembered his distinctly un-Goron-like cap, and hastily threw his hands over his head.

It didn't look as if their past selves or Anju were paying them much mind. As he passed them Link couldn't help but steal a glance at them...

(_Is that really_ _me?_)

...and then he was past them and quickly heading down and out of the laundry pool area.

As they pushed their way into the bustling town square, Link still had that image of himself etched into his mind's eye.

He'd seen his reflection as a scrub, but up until this moment he hadn't realised how... _sad_ he'd looked back then. His eyes were utterly hollow, like holes that had been burnt right out of his wooden skin. Even the Deku scrubs at Woodfall, for all their spite and malice, hadn't made such a striking impression on him. _They_ at least had had a spark of life in their faces.

_I look... dead_, he thought, and for a moment he wondered whether, if he checked his own reflection this very instant, he'd see the same lifeless melancholy.

Tatl yawned loudly.

"Goddesses I'm tired," she said.

"Really?" said Link. "It's still the middle of the day."

"I haven't slept since — I have no idea. I wonder whose fault _that_ is." Tatl glared at him. "Not to mention, I cannot _believe_ we spent the whole day chasing after Kafei and then you didn't end up doing anything once we found him."

"He needs time," said Link. "We saw him in Clock Town after today, didn't we? He gave us..." He fished around his tunic pockets.

"Yeah, some stupid pendant, I remember," said Tatl. "Are you taking it out? Please don't take it out. You'll just find another excuse to turn us around again... But still. That might have been the most pointless detour in recorded history."

"History records detours now?"

"No, but... Wait, were you making a joke?" She scrutinised his face. "Never mind, you got my hopes up. But yeah. We just wasted half a day in Clock Town, and we have nothing to show for it besides some very weird memories."

"That's not true," said Link, "we got bombs from that little old lady, remember?"

"We- Oh. Oh, we did." Tatl's eyes lit up. "Okay, we've been a _bit_ productive, then..."

Link paused for a second, a slightly mad thought forming.

"Want to see them in action?" he said.

Tatl's eyebrows shot right up past her brow.

"For real?" she said cautiously.

"For real," said Link.

The delighted look that was now appearing on Tatl's face no longer filled Link with primordial dread. He must be getting used to her, he decided.

**-oOo-**

**Termina Field**

Link removed a plum-sized bomb from the bomb bag, retying the bag before slipping it safely away. He took the end of the bomb's fuse in his other hand, scraped it across the phosphorus patch, and watched as the string began spitting sparks. Dropping to one knee, he swept the bomb forward with a smooth underarm roll, and, with his ears plugged, counted: _one, two-_

_Bang._

The explosion was a flash of white light, rumbling the ground beneath his feet. Where the bomb had been was now a flat, shallow crater, perhaps five feet in diameter. A few embers still fizzled at its centre, but they quickly died out.

"Mmm," hummed Tatl appreciatively.

"I was worried you were going to insist this exercise involved setting something on fire."

"Oh, I'm happy to wait for the murder and mayhem."

"To... what? There's not going to be any murder and mayhem."

Tatl _tut-tut_ted patronisingly. "Link, Link, Link. There's _always_ murder and mayhem when you're around."

"You've only known me for a week," said Link.

_Oh Goddesses he'd known her for a week_. If it had only taken him that long to take a shining to her, imagine how badly she'd corrupt him given a second week...

"And in that week I've decided I like you and all your running around breaking into temples and palaces, haven't I? Why else do you think I'm still hanging around you?"

"To rescue your brother?" said Link without much seriousness.

Bomb bag out. Bomb in hand. Fuse lit. Crouch. A swift, gentle roll. Ears plugged.

Tatl shrugged. "Besides that."

_Bang_.

The explosive went off right next to a sizable rock pillar. The force of the blast cleaved it in two at a weak point, and the smaller piece went flying away from the source of the explosion, landing in the dirt with a _thud_.

The shock and movement sent a nest of beetles with shiny blue carapaces scuttling out from the base of the rock. For an infinitesimal second, Link considered snatching one of the insects, _just_ in case he needed one later.

(Old habits died hard, it seemed.)

Tatl looked appreciative. "I like these things. They're really effective at killing stuff."

"Not really," said Link. "They're a little unwieldy."

"Unwieldy? You just rolled that thing like a _modern dancer_."

Link wasn't quite sure what a modern dancer was, but he assumed she'd meant 'gracefully'. "Thanks, I think. But I don't have that luxury in a fight."

"Why not?"

"Imagine you're trying to toss one of these at someone who's trying to kill you."

"So just like throwing a ball, then?"

"Right, but it has a fuse of a few seconds. So if you throw it too early, it might bounce straight back to you. Or it might explode on impact. And it's completely dumb luck which one happens."

Tatl nodded slowly. "Right. So... you throw it at the last minute, I guess."

"That's the idea. But if the fuse is impure the bomb might go off sooner than you expect. Or the blast might be bigger than the last one you tossed. And I have no idea until it goes off."

A grin was creeping across Tatl's face. "So basically if you start using bombs in a fight things get very interesting."

"Yes. If by 'interesting' you mean..."

"Fun?"

"...dangerous."

"Like I said."

A question that had been rolling around in the back of Link's mind for the past few hours resurfaced itself. As he felt around the inner lining of the bomb bag for the next one, he turned to Tatl.

"Tatl," he said, "remember Kafei?"

"The person we spent half a day looking for and then had a really weird conversation with?" said Tatl. "No. Of course not."

"What?" _Oh, right, sarcasm._ Link pressed on. "Well, you remember how strange he looked?"

"Well, duh. He's a man in the body of a kid. That's a weird look for anyone."

"I know. But I meant..." Link tried to find the right words. "He looked weirdly calm, for someone whose life has gone to pieces around him."

Tatl nodded, looking at him expectantly.

Link continued:

"Didn't it look strange, though? Someone that young looking as if..."

"Ah." Tatl smirked. "Is this the part where you make the obvious comparison to yourself?"

"Well..." Link averted his eyes. "Well, yes. Do I look like that? Does that make me seem odd?"

Tatl stared at him for a few full seconds before bursting into snorts of laughter.

"Link," she gasped after she'd calmed down somewhat, "you're weird for all _kinds_ of reasons. You fight giant monsters like it's just another day's work. You move with that sword and aim that bow like the hero of some kind of folk tale, the kind where the hero _wins_, and you're not even old enough to have facial hair. When we met, you were casually strolling around the forest with a little blue thing _that changes the flow of time_, and you just left it sitting on your belt for any old mugger to take."

Link nodded, feeling weirdly... flattered? "That wasn't the que-"

"Shut up, I'm talking. You have _clearly_ handled explosives before because I haven't even seen grown _carpenters_ use bombs without wetting themselves a little bit. You're all kinds of insane, you're one giant boy-shaped ball of contradiction; _I don't even think there's such thing as a boy-shaped ball_; and you know _way_ too much about time travel for anyone under the age of one thousand. So, uh, the fact that you seem a little more calm than you ought to sometimes? That's not really a standout."

Link's mouth worked open and closed for a few seconds. "Um..."

"Actually, I was wondering: are you like Kafei? Were you actually all old and hero-y and then got stuck in a kid's body? Wingshreds, are you _wearing a ten-year-old-boy mask_?"

"What? No. I'm actually ten. And human. And whatever else you're about to ask."

Tatl stared at his face suspiciously for a few seconds, then nodded. "Maybe you're the reincarnation of a demigod or something?" she ventured.

"It'd be news to me."

"Damn."

Tatl looked a little let down.

She was quiet for a few minutes, seemingly lost in her own thoughts.

"So do you normally get your bombs for free?" she said eventually.

"Normally I have money," said Link, not bothering to add, _right up until you and Skull Kid robbed me_.

"Want to grab arrows for free, too?"

"What are you thinking?"

"The farm lady. Romani Ranch, remember? She seemed to like us."

Link nodded, recalling. "She already knew us."

"Right. So according to your time travel rules..."

("They're not _my_ rules...")

"...we're supposed to see her at some point anyway. You want to arm yourself for your exciting Goron suicide quest? We may as well hook up with the one person we know who has bucketloads of arrows lying around her barn."

"Seems like a good idea to me," said Link. He stood, turning to get his bearings. The farm was to the southwest, if he recalled.

"Wait," said Tatl.

Link stopped. "What?"

"One more test?" Tatl smiled hopefully. "With your bombs?"

Link paused, then gave her a begrudging smile.

"Okay. Just one."

Bomb bag out. Bomb in hand. Fuse lit. Crouch. A swift, gentle roll. Ears plugged.

**-oOo-**

**Romani Ranch**

They found Epona wandering around not far outside Milk Road. She seemed to be fine, and was grazing on a patch of wild oats that had formed around the base of an old oak. She spotted them just before they spotted her, and she dashed around the tree with a welcoming whinny before returning to her meal.

Too worn out by time travel and foot travel to seriously question this bit of providence, Link climbed atop her, and the two-come-three set off on their way.

The road to Romani Ranch didn't take them much longer after that. The ranch gate was unlocked when they arrived, and they rode inside.

He spotted the sisters Cremia and Romani straight away: they were unmistakeably related, with the same tall rawboned frame and pearly complexions. They were ahead in the distance, outside the main cottage. The elder of the two, Cremia, stood bent over the house's surrounding fence, and looked to be hammering away at one of the fenceposts. Romani sat on the fence a few feet to Cremia's left, swinging her legs back and forth.

"So how are we going to introduce ourselves?" said Link. "Now _we're_ the ones who already know them, not vice versa. Do we just say we're wandering travellers or something?"

"Wandering travellers?" Tatl looked at him oddly. "Why don't we just go with 'me Tatl, he Link', and ignore any other questions?"

The two sisters were still staring over the fence, when suddenly the younger one, Romani, whipped her mess of red hair around and caught sight of them.

"Grasshopper!" said Romani. She tugged at Cremia's sleeve, pointing excitedly in their direction. "Look, sis, it's Grasshopper and the faerie girl!"

"Mm?" Cremia turned around. "Oh. Link! Tatl!" she called out, waving. "Good to see you two again!" She beckoned them forward and returned her attention to the fence.

Tatl blinked.

"...what, they've _already_ met us?" she said.

"Looks like it," said Link dryly.

"Okay, so, theory," said Tatl. "We end up travelling in time again, go to the ranch again, get more arrows, and do our heads in even more in the process."

"That's possible," said Link. _Worryingly so_. "How about we don't worry about that yet?"

They ended their conversation as they got within earshot of the sisters.

"Cremia! Romani! How are you?" said Link, as he dismounted Epona carefully.

"Well, very well," said Cremia. She put down the hammer she'd been using, and turned to face them. "And what about you two? To what do we owe this pleasant surprise?"

"Arrows," said Tatl. "We're out, we know you have spares... it's a perfect match, really."

"I..." Link grimaced in Tatl's direction. "I wouldn't have put it so bluntly," he admitted.

"_More_ arrows?" Cremia seemed to laugh. "Cow's blood, _already_?"

"If it's any trouble..." said Link.

"Not at all," said Cremia, smiling, "but I do have to ask. Are you a terrible shot or do you _actually_ encounter four monsters a day?"

("Four?" said Tatl, eyebrows raised.)

"Grasshopper isn't a terrible shot, sis," said Romani petulantly, "Grasshopper helped Romani stop the ghosts last night."

Cremia rolled her eyes. "That sounds exciting, Romani."

"It was! He was like, _pew pew pew_! And the ghosts were like, _rawr rawr_! And then Romani and Link used their bows and arrows and stopped all the ghosts!"

As Cremia moved towards the barn, she stopped to whisper to them, "I don't begrudge Romani her imagination. But I woke up this morning to find she'd shot arrows _all over_ the grass. Everywhere. We spent a good hour cleaning them all up. What on earth possessed that girl, I have no idea, truly."

"Maybe there really _were_ ghosts?" said Link.

"Not you too," groaned Cremia good-naturedly. "Pass me your quiver, will you?"

Link did so obligingly, and Cremia disappeared into the barn.

"I won't be a minute," she called.

As soon as her older sister was out of sight, Romani hopped off the fence and sauntered towards them.

"Surprise, surprise," said Tatl. "Should I leave you two lovebirds be?"

"_Lovebirds_?" said Link. "What, because we're the same age?"

"Because she has a nickname for you. Do you know how close to being married that is? It's, like..." — Tatl held out her hand, thumb and index finger a fraction apart — "..._this_ close."

"_You_ call everyone by nicknames," Link countered, ignoring the sudden heat rushing to his face.

"That's... different," humphed Tatl.

Romani reached them. Link turned to face her; she glared at him and moved around. After a few seconds of confusion, he worked out what she was trying to do. He stood still, and Romani grinned and darted behind him, leaning (on tiptoes) over his shoulder.

"Hi, Grasshopper," she whispered conspiratorially.

"Hi, Romani," he said. "How are you and your sister?"

"Romani and Cremia..." — she looked backed and forth, as if worried about eavesdroppers — "...are good."

Her hair was brushing itchily against the back of his neck; Link forced himself not to squirm out of the way.

"Romani thought you were really awesome with your bow last night," Romani whispered, giggling.

"Thanks," said Link. He paused, taking a guess at what had happened (or would happen) and said, "So were you."

Tatl buried her face in her palms. "Oh gods, you two are what, ten? I'm the only person here who notices how _wrong_ that sounds, aren't I?"

"Romani! Leave the poor boy alone!"

Cremia had just re-emerged from the barn, a quiver full of arrows in tow. From this distance Link counted three, maybe four dozen.

Romani instantly slipped away from Link's shoulder. "Romani wasn't doing anything, sis!" said Romani. "He, um, came up and started talking to Romani."

"You're a worse liar than I am, Romani," said Cremia. "Here." She tossed the quiver to Link, who caught them.

He glanced inside, confirming his earlier estimate. "Thanks," he said.

"Not a problem, really. I'd offer you two dinner, but..."

Cremia trailed off. She had the look of someone who'd just thought of a strange idea.

"Do you mind doing me a favour?" she said.

"What is it?" said Link.

"I'm heading to Clock Town in not too long. I'm making my weekly delivery."

"I see," said Link, "you want us to look after Romani while you're gone?"

"What?" Cremia gaped. "Well, that's _forward_ of you."

Link was confused. "Forward?"

"It's a grown-up word," said Tatl, "you wouldn't understand."

Cremia smirked. "Cute, Tatl. No — I'd appreciate it if you'd ride alongside me up to Clock Town. The cart'll be weighed down with milk crates, but a little company would be nice."

Link turned to Tatl. "What do you think?" he said.

"We have time, right?" said Tatl. "It's all good to me."

"We'd be happy to," Link told Cremia.

"Thank you both," Cremia beamed. "Let me just duck inside. I don't want to be visiting my customers in town wearing _this_. I won't be a minute."

She walked back to the fence, grabbed the hammer, and, as an afterthought, bashed down the last nail that she'd been working on. Then, with an apologetic smile, she hopped the fence towards the house.

In the corner of his eye, Link could see Romani watching him and Tatl. She was standing almost perfectly still, like a soldier at attention, although the resemblance was undermined by her hands clasped in front of her chest and the sparkle in her eyes. Every few seconds she flicked her hands through her hair, as if deliberately making it messier.

"You are adorable when you're oblivious," sighed Tatl fondly.

"Oblivious?" said Link. "I know Romani's watching us, if that's what you mean."

"So. Damned. _Adorable_."

Cremia yanked Romani by the hem of her blouse. The two sisters disappeared into the house.

**CYCLE 2: HYSTERIA  
NIGHT of the SECOND DAY**

**Milk Road**

"So where are you from?" said Cremia.

They'd been riding for about twenty minutes, and were still in Milk Road, the cliff-walled area that served to cut off Romani Ranch from the expanses of Termina Field.

The sun had just set, and the sky was a deepening shade of purple. In this eerie crepuscular light, Cremia's face and hair seemed to alternate between solid shape and silhouette. She sat at the front of her wooden milk cart, driving two sturdy-looking barn horses forward along the road.

The cart was laden with crates: mostly milk, but also a couple of other exotic things. As they'd loaded it up, Cremia had pointed proudly to a few jars of what she called 'Chateau Romani', her ranch's signature blend which, she said, had invigorating properties. Also, Link had noticed, one of the crates was packed full of arrows. He already knew Cremia had them in great supply; it looked like she planned on selling off her surplus while in town.

Link rode alongside her, holding Epona's reins loosely in one hand. Tatl flew in between the two of them, darting ahead of them every now and then to inspect a toad or particularly interesting rock.

Link found the night air calming, and didn't mind the relaxed pace. They would easily make Snowhead tomorrow; why rush?

"Hyrule," he said. "It's a kingdom about — I'm not sure how far away."

"A kingdom, huh?" Cremia frowned thoughtfully. "So you'd have a royal family, then? A king and queen?"

"Just a king," said Link. "Our queen passed away some time ago."

"Is there a royal heir?"

"He has a daughter. Princess Zelda."

At the thought of this name, mixed emotions began to intrude on him. Link hurriedly pushed these thoughts aside.

"So what about Termina?" said Link. "I've been here for a week and I'm still not sure who rules the land."

"That's because nobody _rules_ Termina," said Cremia. "Clock Town has an elected Mayor. The Dekus and Zoras have spots that belong to them, but for the most part... I guess we all just get along fine."

"I'm impressed," said Link. "The different races didn't get along all the time in Hyrule."

(The Gorons had been particularly noteworthy. Link wasn't sure excatly how many generations of skirmishes and uneasy truces had led to the coexistence between their Death Mountain tribe and Hylian royalty, but it had always seemed a little fragile. Their patriarch had threatened to _eat_ him when they'd first met, for crying out loud.)

"'Didn't'?" said Cremia. "Did something happen to them all?"

_The sky was ashen as Link and Navi took their first steps out of the temple. The smell of decay that had lingered inside was in full blast out here, noxious and suffocatingly thick._

_Everything was in ruins. They stepped through streets and found broken doors and the abandoned remnants of burning carts. Save the occasional pair of eyes watching them curiously through boarded windows, there was nobody there to meet them._

"No," said Link. "Nothing happened."

He could sense Tatl's eyes on him, and could guess what was going through her head: she wanted to keep probing.

He looked up, met her eyes, and shook his head. _Maybe later_, he mouthed.

Tatl nodded and let it drop.

They rode on for a few more minutes in a peaceful kind of silence.

"How long have you been running the ranch?" asked Link, trying to make conversation.

"Oh, um..." Cremia's eyes glazed over as she thought. "A few years now. I... I can't remember exactly how many."

She sighed.

"I guess it's been a while now since our father died."

"May I ask...?" said Link.

"I'd rather not," said Cremia. (Link nodded.) "I'm trying to take care of the ranch, but things are just so... unstable, lately. And Romani has been acting stranger with every passing moon. She's been practising using a bow, talking about 'ghosts'... I'm a little worried for her."

Link nodded.

Cremia turned her head up. "Say, what are the townsfolk saying about the moon? It's bigger than before, isn't it?"

"Closer, not bigger," said Tatl.

"Same thing." Cremia sighed. "I have a few friends in town. One of them... she's supposed to be getting married the day after tomorrow, once the Festival of Time is over."

"What's her name?" said Link, a slight suspicion niggling at him.

"Anju. Why? Do you know her?"

_Small world._ "We... might have met briefly."

Cremia nodded. Then, changing the subject, she motioned upwards again. "I wonder if that... thing's going to fall?"

"Not if we have anything to say about it," said Tatl.

Cremia smiled slightly. "I like your bravado. You two seem so confident."

"What can I say?" said Tatl, with a modest shrug, "I'm rubbing off on him."

Link quietly placed his face in his palms.

"So how does a boy your age end up travelling the world?" said Cremia.

"Um..."

"You're surprisingly mature, too. I'm guessing you were raised in the castle. Son of a knight, am I close?"

"Nothing like that," said Link. "No, I was raised in a forest to the south of the castle. I never knew my parents."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Cremia. "Who raised you, then?"

"There were..." Link paused, wondering how much he wanted to say. "There were people living in the forest."

"Gypsies?" said Tatl, sounding very interested.

"No, more like... I suppose you could call them spirits. They looked like people, just... young. For a long time I thought I was one of them."

"Ooh, woodland sprites?" said Tatl. She grinned in realisation. "So _that's_ how you ended up having a faerie as a friend. Oh, Deky boy. That's _cheating_."

"Yeah, I..." Link hesitated. Then again, what was the harm in telling Tatl more? He suspected he'd learned a lot more about her life than vice versa. "That's right. We all had our own faeries. Except — well, yes, all of us."

"Were they a martial people?" said Cremia.

"Um, what?"

"Did they teach you about bows and swords, or did you learn that somewhere else?"

"Oh, somewhere else. When I left the forest..."

"Why did you leave the forest?" said Tatl.

"Because..." Link paused.

—_thinking, no, he thrashed, teeth, the rotten heart of the tree, mindless, no, he thrashed—_

"My... adoptive father..." he began.

Cremia interrupted: "Smoke!"

"What?" said Link, a second before he saw it: a column of smoke, rising from not far ahead of them.

Its source became clear as they crested the next hill: burning logs were strewn across the road. The flames licked and crackled high, bathing the ground in a cruel red glow.

Cremia's mouth was set in a thin line. "First that boulder blocking the road yesterday morning, and now this..."

"What is that _doing_ there?" said Tatl.

"It's a blockade," said Link grimly. He'd built one or two in his time.

Cremia glanced back over her shoulder. "We're going to have to take a detour through ugly country."

"How ugly?" said Link.

"Ugly."

Link and Tatl exchanged glances, recalling how they'd seen the milk cart in the future looking significantly worse for wear.

"I'll do what I can to cover the cart," said Link.

Cremia nodded, and pulled into a small dirt track that Link hadn't noticed amidst the trees.

"Get your bow ready," she said. "If any pursuers come from behind, chase them off with your arrows."

"Got it," said Link.

He didn't like the situation. It was tactically dangerous, they were walking into what was obviously an ambush... and for all his fighting prowess, he doubted he could protect Cremia if they were surrounded on all sides-

_-but we saw Cremia alive tomorrow_, he remembered, _so this can't end badly_-

-_but that doesn't mean I won't die_, he corrected himself-

-_the woods are so dark at night_, said the Kokiri boy, whose voice always rendered the obvious terrifying, _you never know what's hiding just behind you-_

"Be prepared to do whatever it takes to defend us," said Cremia. "This place is rough. A few months ago I was waylaid in this same area by an ugly thug. If Romani hadn't been in the cart, he..."

"Say no more," said Link. He'd heard enough stories in the chaos of wartime Hyrule about men waylaying women under the cover of night that he really, _really_ didn't need any more to fuel his imagination.

"I don't like this," said Tatl quietly.

"Neither do I."

"Anything I can do to help?"

Link shook his head. "Just stay out of my line of sight if arrows start flying."

"Mhmm. Lemme ask again: anything I can do? Do you want a lookout?" said Tatl.

"I... Yes, actually," said Link. "Give us a shout if you see anyone coming."

With a nod, Tatl shot up into the air. As she got further away, she looked less like a flying faerie, and more like shooting star swooping through the night sky.

"...thanks," murmured Link.

**-oOo-**

Tatl trailed above and behind the cart for some minutes, keeping her eye on the surrounding woods.

At fifty feet up, she could see the path snaking left and right through the bumpy terrain. She could see Cremia's cart hop with every dip in the road, landing with a jarring _thunk_ on its wheels. Above her she could see the familiar expanse of stars that enshrouded Termina's night sky...

...and, as ever, the moon and its unnatural, _I-want-you-dead_ scowl.

Tatl decided she'd keep paying attention to the road.

Ever since she and Tael had started hanging around Skull Kid, Tatl had really started to appreciate how _boring_ it was being less than ten feet above the ground all the time. At that height you only ever saw things from the front, back and sides — never the fractal canopies of trees, or the gridded vermillions of Clock Town rooftops, where the sun and moon's light played nature against craftsmanship at its finest. For her, sticking that close to the ground was a tedious limitation. For _everyone else_... Tatl couldn't really imagine what it was like not even _knowing_ what they were missing out on.

Being... _blind_ to that must really shape a person's way of seeing the world. That explained why Skull Kid was how he was sometimes, and it explained Link, too. Humans, Gorons, Dekus, all of them: they were stuck with the ground view. They literally couldn't see the forest for the trees.

Sometimes Tatl was really, _really_ glad she'd been born a faerie.

She sighed. It had been a few minutes now, nothing scary-interesting was happening, and, well, there was only so long she could go for without someone to _talk_ at. (Talk to. Whatever.)

Then, movement. As the cart passed one particularly thick grove of trees, the leaves rustled and a pair of horse riders appeared out of the foliage, their mounts quickly gaining in speed.

"Uh oh," she said.

A few seconds later she had caught up with Link and Cremia again, and said quickly:

"Two people. On horses behind us."

"Did you see their faces?" said Cremia-

"How are they armed?" said Link simultaneously.

"I didn't get a close look," said Tatl.

Link twisted his head around and peered into the darkness.

"Is that them there? At the top of that last hill?"

"What else would it be?" said Tatl. "How bad _is_ your human eyesight?"

"Did you just call say 'human eyesight'?" said Link, his voice disbelieving.

"Yeah. What else would you call it?"

"Eyesight?" said Link, cocking a brow.

She laughed. "You call that _eyesight_? Your guys and your little non-magic eyeballs are an insult to eyesight. You can't even see auras."

"Magic isn't eyesight! It's-"

"Stay focused, you two," said Cremia warningly.

"We _are_ focused," said Link, then, looking behind again, "Oh. They're gaining on us fast."

"We'll be back on the main road in about five minutes," said Cremia. "Can you hold them off?"

"I'll can try," said Link, in a tone of voice that said _I'll do my damnedest and then some_.

He tugged gently at Epona's reins, dropping back just behind the milk cart.

"Tatl. Can you see how well armed they are?"

"Sure, but faerie eyes _are_ better," said Tatl, spinning around.

Flying backwards wasn't as hard as it looked. Tatl had been doing it since she'd first hatched. The trick was to keep her sense of balance, which meant _no_ looking over her shoulder to see where she was going. Once she did that, it wasn't too hard to feel for the pulses in aura and changes in air current that happened when she was a split second away from hitting something.

Of course, one mistake and she'd be splattered on a tree trunk until the magic in her veins straightened out her spine a few minutes later. But if it was the safe option, she wouldn't be doing it, would she?

Their pursuers were both wearing canvas cowls over their faces. They had the same build — tall, thin and rangy — and were wearing what looked from this distance to be run-of-the-mill clothes.

It was the pitchforks in their arms that attracted Tatl's attention the most. Perhaps it was the speed they were riding at and the danger of the situation, but they looked _really damned pointy_. Looking closer, she could see what looked like more weaponry slung to their backs — one of them had a bow, and one had what might have been a hatchet or a sword.

She turned one-eighty to see Link twisting around in his saddle, bow out, aiming behind at the bandits. There was an intense look on his face as he held the drawstring taut.

"You're hesitating," she said.

Link didn't look up. "I'm aiming."

"You don't aim this slow."

"I _do_ when they're moving targets and I'm on a moving horse."

Tatl dropped her voice. "I'm not sure if you can see, but those guys back there are pretty well armed. Swords and bows and stuff. _And_ they're hiding their faces behind masks. I don't think they play nice."

"You're sure they're dangerous?" said Link, still staring down the length of his arrow.

"I... yes. I'm sure."

Link let go and the arrow went flying off into the darkness. Before his drawstring had settled he had already pulled the next missile from his quiver, and then a second later, the next.

Tatl looked back towards the bandits. She couldn't tell how off-target Link was — the arrows were impossible to see in the darkness, and besides the fact that the bandits didn't so much as seem to notice that they were being shot at, she had no idea where they had landed.

A light metallic sound caught her attention. She dropped further back to see exactly what — _oh, blast_. The last arrow had just _bounced off_ one of the bandits' fronts.

"They're wearing armour!" she called, moving back to Link's side.

"What?"

"You _heard_ me," said Tatl, rolling her eyes. "You need to, I don't know, shoot harder or something."

"_That's not how bows work_," said Link.

"Is that annoyance I'm hearing in your voice?" said Tatl. "Because I'm not the enemy here..."

"I know," said Link. He put his bow away and drew his sword, then turned Epona sharply in the direction of the bandits.

"...the _enemy_ is," Tatl called after him.

"I _know_," Link called back.

He still sounded annoyed. (_Humans_. Tatl shook her head knowingly.)

The closest bandit spotted Link's approach a few seconds away, and, if his body language was anything to go by, was taken aback by his presence.

"Who the hell?" Tatl heard him mutter, as he turned his attention towards the interloper.

As Link drew into range, he suddenly found himself contending with a spiked pitchfork jammed alarmingly towards his face. He recoiled back, lifted his sword, and pushed in close again, this time using the sword to deflect the pitchfork over his head, and with a deft, twisting move, brought Epona in close to the marauder's horse, flank to flank. It was a slightly ridiculous sight, what with the considerable difference in size between the two horses.

It looked to Tatl like the pitchfork was unwieldy and useless at such close range, and sure enough, a second later the bandit discarded it (whereupon it tumbled sideways onto Epona's back, eliciting an aggrieved whinny from her, and bounced off onto the dirt road).

The bandit drew his sword, and it was at about this point that Tatl lost track of what was going on. They were both slashing at each other, and their swords clanged loudly on contact, but she had no idea who was winning. For a few seconds it looked like Link was straining to get his sword high enough. Then it looked like the bandit was leaning too far in Link's direction. Then they were practically leaning on each other, and then they broke apart, and then the bandit slammed his horse into Epona, and then they both looked as if they were about to fall off, and then they were swinging their swords wildly at each other again — well, the _bandit's_ swings were wild at least — and then left and right and up and down and offensive and defensive and, well, she was just glad that the Great Faerie wouldn't be quizzing her on the details later.

Then Link slashed _low_, well below the bandit's saddle, and, in a quick manoeuvre, _stood_, parried the bandit's sword with his own, and grabbed him by the mask with his free hand. Whatever he had just done, the saddle was no longer properly affixed to the horse's back, and when Link dropped back towards his seat on Epona, so did the bandit.

For a couple of seconds the man was caught between his own horse and Link's, one hand digging into Link's tunic while the other brandished his sword fervidly. Then Link hit him with the flat of his blade, pulling Epona to a halt at the same time.

Link was left holding the bandit's cowl as the bandit hit the ground in a tangle of stirrups and limbs, spinning awkwardly on impact. He skidded to a halt in the dust, unmoving.

"Cremia!" said Tatl, darting forward. "One down!"

"How many left? One?" said Cremia.

"That's right."

The path had deteriorated; as Cremia rounded the next bend she entered a particularly unkempt stretch of road, dotted by shrubs and small trees.

Link had pulled around in the meantime and was racing back towards the cart.

"Tatl!" he called. "Where's the other bandit?"

Tatl scanned around and spotted the remaining one almost immediately. "He's at your two 'o clock."

"He's what? _When_?"

"I said two 'oâ" Tatl blinked. He had no idea what she was talking about, did he? _How was that even possible?_ "In front of you and a tiny bit to the right!"

Link's head moved as he scanned through the trees dotting the path. Tatl was pretty sure she could tell the exact moment he spotted the horseman: he leaned further forward into Epona's mane, and she broke into a full gallop. They weaved through the trees like a gust of wind.

Even so, it was clear that the filly was no match for the marauder's full-grown horse. The gap between them was widening, even as the bandit drew closer to Cremia's cart.

"You're not going fast enough!" she yelled.

"I know!" Link shouted back.

She rolled her eyes. "Hey, I was just _saying_."

"Do you see any shortcuts?"

Tatl raised her altitude and followed the path with her eyes, picturing the next few seconds. At the speed the bandit was going; at the speed Link was going...

"Cut left through the trees," she called. "The path bends around."

"Got it."

"Have you never looked at a _clock_ in your life?" she added.

Link ignored her (like a _jerk_) and angled Epona neatly off the path, disappearing under the woodland canopy.

Tatl turned her eyes back to the main trail, where the bandit was closing upon the milk cart. His hands had dropped from the reins, and he was carrying something in his hands.

_Ah, a bow_, she thought, and then there was a streak of red hot light from bandit to Cremia, and suddenly...

...fire...

..._everywhere_.

"Oh," she muttered. "Oh _wow_."

The side of the cart was burning bright and hot. A cloud of black smoke billowed out from behind it. The flames — _I wonder how that happened?_, she thought — were dancing and licking at each other and starting to eat their way across the canvas, inch by inch.

Cremia had noticed too. "Link!" she shouted, glancing back behind her at the flaming tarp. "Where are you? Get it out!"

Tatl drew level with her. "He's not here yet," she said, "just give it a second-"

This time, Tatl _did_ see what happened. The bandit's bowstring was drawn back, and the arrow he was holding was — its arrowhead was on fire.

_Its arrowhead was on fire_. That was like a little stroke of genius right there. Forget bombs or torches or anything that stopped working a stone's throw away... these could set things alight from a distance. Forget whatever doubts she'd initially had about Link's bow making the interesting bits boring. They had to work out how to do this. Tatl burst into delighted laughter. _It was an arrow that was also on fire._

(And now it was speeding through the air. And now it had hit the other side of the cart from the inside, burying into the side and smoke beginning to hiss as the flame caught.)

Cremia gritted her teeth, tugging hard on her horses' reins as the road took a tight left turn. "Tatl! Can you put it out?"

"Uh, what?" Tatl blinked, distracted. "The pranking possibilities? Put what out?"

The bandit showed no signs of stopping: he was already pulling another arrow out, doing — _something_ that Tatl couldn't see but she'd bet it involved matches, all the cool things involved matches — and lining up another shot at...

With a loud whinny, Epona burst out from the trees on the left side of the path, heading on a collision course with the bandit's horse. Link had his head down, body angled straight forward, sword pointed behind him, ready to strike.

The bandit caught sight of him and went straight for his reins. (The fiery arrow he'd been aiming went flying well off target into the ground: failing, to Tatl's disappointment, to set anything on fire.) He turned his steed sharply past Link's direction, and a second later the two horses missed each other by some twenty yards.

By the time Link could correct for the non-collision, Epona's momentum had carried her to the other side of the path.

"Tatl?" he called.

"Keep going to the right," she responded. "There's another turn just ahead!"

"Cow's blood, what in hell is going on back there?"

...oh, Cremia. Tatl had forgotten about her.

"Don't worry about us!" said Tatl.

"My _wagon is on fire_," shouted Cremia, "I'm not worried about _you_!"

"Oh."

She looked back and saw the bandit fire another arrow: this one went slightly short, striking the rear wheel of the cart and deflecting off.

"Anything you can do?" Cremia called.

She was talking to... her? "I..." flustered Tatl. "Hey, I'm the brains here, not the brawn! Do I look like I have a bucket of water up my sleeve? Do I look like I have _sleeves_?"

"You don't have faerie powers or anything?"

"No, I do not have faerie powers; _how does nobody ever understand how faeries work!?_"

That said... Tatl cast her eye at the fire on the cart's flank. If she stared hard enough, she could see the dull grey aura surrounding each of the hemp fibres in the canvas. The specks of one of the arrowheads where it had sheared on impact appeared as rose-black specks through the stitching.

The fire itself appeared as it was — flames, pure energy, a raw building block of magic. As they spread along the canvas, the auras of the fibres blossomed brightly as they caught ablaze, whatever essence they'd once held being released into the night.

"Okay..." she muttered. _Think, Tatl, think._

For _some reason_, the Great Faerie hadn't ever taught her any destructive spells; nothing that could destroy a gnat, let alone a fire. But maybe... breeze redirection? Yeah, she could totally do that.

Squinting really hard, Tatl thrust out a hand and flicked her wrist repeatedly in a tight triangular movement: up, left, and right; up, left, and right. As she did this, she... _pulled_, with what small control she had over her magic, trying to visualise the flames drawing away from the cart.

And... nothing. For a second it looked as if the fire was getting _stronger_.

Tatl sighed. She might need to take the Great Faerie up on those lessons again, after all.

"Okay," she said to Cremia, "this isn't going to work..."

Link and Epona burst out from the trees once again.

This time, Link turned his steed level with the bandit's horse. The bandit exchanged blows with Link, wrought iron pitchfork clashing loudly with the steel of Link's sword.

As Link parried and raised his blade to strike, the bandit rammed his horse into Epona as he drove his pitchfork downwards, catching Link's attack and hitting Epona with the larger horse's full weight.

The force sent Epona staggering off to the side, and she nearly well slammed into a tree before she corrected herself... and almost jerked Link off the saddle, his shoulder banging into the offending tree.

Tatl winced.

"You okay?" she called.

"I'm fine," said Link, though the grimace on his face told a different story. He kicked at Epona's flank. "Come on, girl, let's go."

Cremia and the bandit had gotten further away in the meantime, and already the marauder was lining up another shot with his flaming arrows.

Tatl shot up higher, trying to get a better view of the path.

"Right bend in half a mile!" she called to Link. "And, by the way, I _really_ hope you have a plan B here!"

"I'm thinking!"

"Well, think faster, or Cremia is toast! And I do actually mean _toast_. Did you _see_ those flames on the wagon!?"

"Not helping!" Link shouted back, and Epona neighed as if in agreement.

He was looking back and forth between the bandit and Cremia's cart. Tatl recognised the look in his eyes. It was the same look he'd had before he'd come up with a ludicrous plan to slay Odolwa, the monster in Woodfall Temple. There were gears turning in that strange little boy's head.

"Got an idea there?" she said.

Link slipped off the path without a word, disappearing into the trees.

"Thanks for your support, Tatl!" Tatl called after him. "I really appreciate it!"

...aaaand he was out of sight. Hmph.

The _whumph_ of an arrow striking Cremia's cart and catching fire brought Tatl back to earth (metaphorically, of course; she never flew _that_ low without a real good reason). Even from this far away, her vision picked up on the toppled crates and jars that hadn't survived the rough ride.

"Okay, keep calm," she said to nobody in particular.

At least the fire wasn't spreading fast: despite whatever oily substance was in the arrowheads, the wind from the speed of their riding was keeping much of the burning at bay.

Cremia and the bandit passed the next bend, and for the third time, Link and Epona emerged from the side of the path. This time, Link appeared slightly ahead of Cremia, close enough to draw parallel with her.

"They're gaining!" Cremia shouted at him.

"I know!" he shouted back. "I'm going to try something. Whatever happens, don't slow down!"

Cremia nodded, and Link pulled back until he was right behind the cart, right between it and the bandit.

Then he...

"The _hell_?" said Tatl.

...then Link leapt off Epona, landing on the ground and rolling. A cloud of dust billowed around him as he came to a stop, looking disoriented.

The bandit's horse was racing straight towards him as he rose to his knees, turned slowly around to face the oncoming steed-

and stood still, looking straight ahead, one hand on his belt, the other waving dust from his eyes, not making the slightest motion to dodge-

and _wingshreds the bandit was about to trample Link to death_-

"_Link_!" Tatl shrieked, diving down-

-as if there was anything she could possibly do-

-but before she could really react, there was the nauseatingly familiar sound of Link screaming, and then another couple of sounds Tatl didn't recognise _at all_-

-and then the horse was flying _sideways_ with the bandit still in the saddle, and there was the sound of a man screaming, and then the horse landed loudly on the ground, half on top of its rider, both of them skidding along the ground in a cloud of dust and yelps before coming to a halt.

It took a few moments of blank shock for Tatl to fully process the fact that boy-horse collisions were _not supposed to work like that_.

"What the _hell_?" she said.

She turned her head back to the point of collision to see Link pulling off the Goron mask and returning it to his belt.

It took a second for Tatl to put two and two together.

"Did you just..." she began.

Link was jogging towards where the bandit had fallen. "Ask me in a second!"

"Did you just _throw_ a... _horse_!?"

The boy reached the spot where the bandit had fallen, wrested the bow from its owners' hand, and sliced the bowstring in half.

"I used its momentum against it," he said, running to where Epona stood nearby and urging her forward before he'd even gotten onto the saddle properly. "Does that count as throwing?"

"You _threw a horse_," said Tatl incredulously.

"Go ahead and tell Cremia it's safe to stop and deal with the fire."

Tatl kept pace with him instead. "You... That's _cheating_!"

"Cheating?"

"It's not a fair fight if you turn into a giant rock monster."

Link looked at her incredulously. "A _fair_ fight? To the death?"

"A... you know what I mean."

"I have no idea what you mean," said Link. Then, as they came into shouting distance of the cart: "Cremia! _All clear_!"

She gritted her teeth in frustration. "Why didn't you warn me you were going to do that?"

Link looked confused. "But you weren't in any danger..."

"But _you_... I mean, I _thought_... I was wo... I...I wanted to _see it happen_, you nincompoop!"

Link said nothing.

By the time they caught up with Cremia, she had already pulled the cart to a stop and was at work putting out the patches of flame that had taken hold at various points around the cart's tarp.

"They're both gone?" she said. The words came out crisply, no time wasted on elocution.

"Yes," said Link. He cut the burning strips at the edge of the canvas in a few short movements. "The second one had his leg crushed by his horse. He won't be after us soon."

"He threw a horse," added Tatl, seeing as Link wasn't about to mention it.

"Um, what?" said Cremia quizzically, and then, a split second later, "Bloody _hell_, these jars are like hot coals!", and she seemed to become distracted by this.

**-oOo-**

Once the cart was convincingly not-on-fire and all three of them had finished inspecting the integrity of its motherlode, they set off on their way. Not long after, they were back on the beaten track. Their pace was a lot slower now, as the horses were fatigued from before.

"Do you know who those guys were?" said Tatl. She was lying exhausted just in front of Cremia's saddle.

"I have my suspicions," Cremia said. She looked haggard. "It doesn't matter, though. Let's just get to town already."

Link was examining the mask he'd pulled off of the first bandit. It was made of a heavy cloth, stained brown with dirt and sweat. Nothing out of the ordinary, save the rather intricate embroidery around the seams.

"Have either of you seen this stitching before?" he said. "It seems a little ornate for a thief to wear."

Cremia took one look at it and nodded. "Oh, it's a Garo cowl," she said. "I've seen them in oddity shops."

"_That_'s what they look like?" said Tatl. "That's a letdown."

"What's a Garo cowl?" said Link.

"A cowl that a Garo wears," said Tatl, then, smirking at Link's pointed look: "Okay, okay. They're ancient assassins from ancient history."

"Mythology, not history," said Cremia. "Everything that's ever been written about them was hearsay."

"These assassins," said Link, "did they leave descendants?"

"They all died," said Tatl. "They were spying on the Ikana kingdom out to the east, and when the gods struck down Ikana, the Garo were caught up in it."

"The gods did not 'strike down' Ikana," Cremia interjected. "The kingdom was abandoned when the land dried up and became barren. They couldn't grow anything, so they moved out."

"What, overnight?" said Tatl. "They didn't leave so much as a goodbye note, just a bunch of ruins."

"They predated most of Termina's civilisation. There _wasn't_ anyone to say bye to."

"The tales don't tell of a land that had a bad farming season, they tell of people who were so arrogant the gods had to _kill them all off_."

"It's a better story. It was a drought."

"This mask," Link interrupted. "Who wore them? How did they end up in the hands of a couple of bandits?"

"You can buy them anywhere these days," said Cremia. "Travellers find these things lying around on the ground all over Ikana canyon."

"It's because the Garo assassins all died," said Tatl. "All that was left was their clothes."

"They died without leaving a corpse?" said Link.

"Sure, why not? They were assassins. That's what assassins do."

"I thought assassins kill people."

"That too."

* * *

**A/N:** Confession: I finished this over half a month ago, and have been sitting on it since trying to force myself through a proofread. (I thought that if I waited a few days I'd be less sick of this wall of text. Evidently not.)

Anyway, I'm immensely proud of this one, especially the action scene (Tatl POV :D) and some of the earlier parts where Link has finally gotten around to _intentionally_ explaining a little more about himself to Tatl. They're almost, like, on talking terms :P

On the subject of feedback, then:  
(1) Action scene; did it work?  
(2) Link/Tatl interaction; did it work?  
(3) You might have noticed the giant recap at the top of the page. I figured I'm updating infrequently enough that it's nice to remind people what the hell is going on. I plan on keeping the first three paragraphs, and then changing the remainder as needed for each coming chapter. Any thoughts/suggestions? Or is it totally unnecessary?

As always, you people are amazing. I received an amazing drawing from Starburstia (link in my profile (hehehe "link")) - thanks a million times over! Thanks to everyone who gave me a much-needed poke in the ribs (especially Lenore, who is officially the most annoying moirail to ever grace this Earth) and encouraged me to keep going.


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